Hard: At sixes and sevens

Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

This episode is hard so we’re looking at more difficult football phrases and idioms. These phrases can be used to talk about football but are also useful when talking about other topics.

Summary

Learn more football vocabulary with Premier Skills English. Each lesson in our Premier Vocabulary section looks at one football word or phrase. This lesson looks at the phrase at sixes and sevens. 

You can find more lessons on the side of this page.

Transcript

Rich: Hello my name's Rich and welcome to Premier Skills English - Premier Vocabulary.

Jack: Hi there! I'm Jack. We're here to help you with your football English. Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time.

Rich: We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

Jack: This episode is hard so we're looking at more difficult football phrases and idioms. These phrases can be used to talk about football but are also useful when talking about other topics.

Rich: The phrase we are looking at in this episode is: to be at sixes and sevens.

Jack: To be at sixes and sevens is an idiom which is used to describe being in a difficult, confusing or disorganised situation. Have a listen to this example:

Rich: How are things after moving house?

Jack: Everything's at sixes and sevens, to be honest. Boxes everywhere and I can't find anything. Everything's higgledy-piggledy.

Rich: A bit of unpacking still to do then.

Jack: Just a bit, yes.

Rich: So, in this example, Jack's house is very disorganised and he's in a state of total confusion because he can't find anything. Everything is very messy. Both the house and Jack are at sixes and sevens.

Jack: The idiom to be at sixes and sevens is very old and was even used by Chaucer and Shakespeare hundreds of years ago

Rich: They didn't connect it to football though, did they?

Jack: Not to my knowledge, no.

Rich: This idiom is quite common when we talk about football, especially when we're talking about defending. Have a listen to this example:

Jack: Not a great performance at the back. Every time they attacked we were at sixes and sevens. We were all over the place.

Rich: The defending for the third goal was awful.

Jack: We were at sixes and sevens. No organisation at all.

Rich: In this example, we're using the idiom to be at sixes and sevens to talk about defending but more specifically bad defending.

Jack: The defence is supposed to be the most organised part of a team so when we use this idiom we are saying the opposite.

Rich: We're describing bad defensive organization.

Jack: There is the final whistle!

Rich: We'll be back soon with more Premier Vocabulary from Premier Skills English.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.

Discuss

• When was the last time you were at sixes and sevens?
• Can you think of any other idioms or phrases that mean the same thing?

Write your answers in the comments section below.