This Week: Raise the bar

Hello my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In This Week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

In today’s podcast, I have some great stories for you and in the language focus sections, I am going to talk about 6 idioms. There are something like 25,000 idioms in the English language and new idioms are constantly being created. A lot of the time, the meaning of idioms can be guessed from their literal meanings, they are a bit like poetry, you have to interpret the meanings, but the most commonly used idioms are quite easy to understand. The idioms I have selected came naturally to me when I was writing the stories and they are all quite common. I really enjoy learning about the origin of idioms, especially when the origin is not straightforward and a couple of these idioms have made it into common usage from uncommon beginnings. I hope you enjoy learning about them.

The idioms I am going to talk about are: To make the grade, to break the deadlock, to sweep something aside, to raise the bar, to be a victim of your own success, and to weather the storm.

I have three stories from the world of football. After each story, I will focus on two of the idioms. After the stories, there will be a language challenge for you to see how well you can remember the language and then there will be a task for you to complete in the comments section on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English. And finally, there will be a football phrase for you to guess.

But before that, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

I took last week’s phrase from the match report on the Brighton website for the match I spoke about earlier. In the report, it said that Brighton had a ________ __ _____ when they were faced with a 2 goal deficit after 39 minutes. So this phrase is used to say that someone of a team faces a massive challenge. If you have a really big job ahead of you, especially if you’re not sure if you can do it, you could say that you have a _______ __ _____.

Congratulations to Jaroslaw from Poland. Welcome to the podcast Jaroslaw. Congratulations Amal Khalafallah from Egypt, Daniel_06 from Mexico and Hasan from Turkey.

You all managed to work out that the phrase I was looking for was a mountain to climb. Not many people got it this week. This might have been a tough one or my description wasn’t very good. Apologies also for not putting in stars for the missing letters. I know that makes it more difficult. Thanks Vietnguyenngo for pointing that out.

Thanks also to Cezario Abrantes for the advice and offer of support with my new year’s resolutions. I may take you up on that ... lets’ see how I do on my own first. Also, it was great to read your answers to the language challenge and the task. I really liked Fabs17 from Italy’s resolution to change their perspective on life. I think that’s a great idea. I used to get really angry with people who were driving aggressively until my wife changed my perspective. One time when I was driving, someone overtook me in a way that I thought was dangerous and I was about to get angry when my wife suggested that the driver might really need to use the toilet. Since then, I have always smiled whenever someone has driven like that. Thanks also to Hasan for sharing more information about St Nicholas and for your answers to the questions. Well done on having achieved all your resolutions last year!

There will be some new questions based on the stories this week at the end of this podcast and I look forward to reading your responses.

OK! Now, it’s time to get on with this week’s three football stories!

Nketiah makes the grade at Oxford

When Eddie Nketiah and his teammates travelled to the famous university city of Oxford, it was to face Oxford United in the FA Cup. Oxford United, or the Yellows as they are known by their fans, play in the EFL League One which is the third tier of English football.

Arsenal fans may have been concerned about the slow start at Oxford’s Kassam Stadium. The Gunners looked in control, but didn’t manage a single shot on target in the first half. With Gabriel Jesus out of action, Arsenal looked less like the league leaders.

After 64 minutes, the Egyptian midfielder, Mohamed Elneny broke the deadlock and opened the scoring. And then it was time for Eddie Nketiah to prove he could step in for Jesus at the front. Nketiah scored twice in under 10 minutes to ensure the Gunners advance to the next round of the cup, and reassure the fans that Arsenal’s front line is in safe hands.

Final score: Oxford United 0 - Arsenal 3

The idioms I want to talk about from this story are: to make the grade and to break the deadlock.

To make the grade

This is interesting. If you make the grade, you have done something that shows that you are good enough.

I chose this idiom because I thought it had something to do with passing an exam and it seemed right in a story about Arsenal visiting Oxford. The noun grade most commonly refers to a result in a test at school. So the best results get an A grade and then if you didn’t do quite as well you get a B and so on. When I was at school, if you wanted to go to university, you would need to pass your exams with good enough grades. I had always thought that to make the grade meant to do well enough to do something like enrol on a university course or pass some kind of selection as part of a job application. But apparently, the word grade in this idiom describes the incline of a hill. So if there is a train line that goes up a hill, if a train can’t make the grade, it means the train doesn’t have the power to go over the hill. If a train can make the grade, it can go up and over the hill. The meaning of the idiom is the same, though. It means that you have shown that you are good enough.

To break the deadlock

This is a dramatic sounding idiom and I had imagined that the origins would be interesting. But a deadlock is actually just a secure type of lock. The sort that you might have found on a door. However, the word today means a situation where two people, two groups or organisations who are competing with each other can’t make progress because their positions, kind of, cancel each other out. I searched for the word deadlock in news stories and there are lots of stories about governments and workers unions who are protesting for better pay and conditions, but the talks are not working and the two sides are in deadlock. Most of the articles actually use the full idiom, to break the deadlock and are about ways that the talks can proceed and about how the state of deadlock can be ended. In football, if a match is 0-0 for a long time and both teams are unable to get through their opposition’s defence, you could describe the teams as deadlocked, though, more commonly, you would use the phrase to break the deadlock when one team finally manages to score.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Seagulls sweep the Boro aside

Roberto De Zerbi must have been delighted with his team’s performance against Middlesbrough on Saturday. Brighton thrashed their hosts 5-1 at the Riverside Stadium with a commanding performance. The Seagulls hammered the Championship side and kept the pressure on for the full 90 minutes.

The star of the show was the Argentinian world-cup winning midfielder Alexis Mac Allister who was subbed on just after half time when Brighton were winning 2-1. Brighton are playing so well that the final result was not much in doubt before Mac Allister’s arrival. The Argentinian showed his quality when he raised the bar even higher with a brace of goals, contributing to a remarkable scoreline, given the strength of their opposition.

Final score: Middlesbrough 1 - Brighton and Hove Albion 5

The idioms I want to talk about from this story are: to sweep something aside and to raise the bar.

To sweep something aside

This idiom is quite easy to understand if you understand the literal meaning. The verb sweep is B2. It describes the action you do when you are cleaning with a broom. This would be much easier to explain if I could show you a picture. A broom is a long pole with bristles or hair or sticks on the end that you use to clean the floor. Witches and Harry Potter fly on broomsticks which is just another word for brooms. If you are using a broom in the conventional manner or normal way, you are sweeping. So to sweep something aside means to treat something as if it is not important. It’s like rubbish or dirt that can be swept out of the way. Something that can be swept aside is an obstacle or issue that is not a real problem.

To raise the bar
This idiom comes from the high jump event in athletics. The bar is the thing that competitors jump over. When the athletes have jumped over the bar, the judges literally raise the bar, they make it higher. So the idiom, to raise the bar means to raise the standard or expectations. So when someone does something that is much better than anyone in the past, what counts as a good performance changes. What might have been good or even excellent in the past suddenly looks average. For example, when Tesla introduced an electric car that had a big enough battery to drive over 200 miles, that really raised the bar for electric vehicles. Before that, electric cars only had a range of 100 miles so 100 miles looked OK. After Tesla sold a car with a much greater range, all the other electric car makers had a new standard to compete with.

Let’s move on to the final story.

Victims of their own success

Manchester City have a mountain of fixtures piling up ahead of them. With matches in the FA Cup, Carabao or EFL Cup, Champions League and Premier League, City’s squad is set to be tested. The Manchester side have something like 2 matches a week for the next 6 weeks.

Fortunately for Pep Guadiola, the City squad has such depth that his side cruised past Chelsea securing a 4-0 victory without Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland leaving the bench.

If Guardiola can keep his starting 11 fresh, City will be in a good condition to weather the storm.

The idioms I want to talk about from this story are: to be a victim of your own success and to weather the storm.

To be a victim of your own success

If you are a victim of your own success, it means you have problems because of your success. These are usually good problems to have. For example, if a small restaurant becomes famous for their speciality, then they might have so many customers that the staff are overworked and they can’t buy enough ingredients. The problems they face make them victims of their own success. I described Manchester City as victims of their own success because they are so busy at the moment due to being in all the competitions. If they weren’t such a good team, they would have more time to rest and train between matches, but at the moment, they are overworked.

To weather the storm

This idiom means to successfully deal with a difficult situation. I think that we normally use it for a complex situation that lasts for some time. For example, if a company is having problems and looks like they might go bankrupt and stop working, then everyone will be worried while the directors do their best to keep the company going. If the company survives, they might be said to have weathered the storm. I looked up the origin of this phrase and it is fascinating. The word weather used to mean storm. There was no general word for weather until the 19th century, but the word weather was used much earlier and meant a storm. The verb use, meaning come through safely, comes from the 17th century and was used to describe ships that had survived a storm. So for a while people might have said to weather the weather - I doubt it, but the connection is clear and now we can say to weather the storm.

OK. That’s six idioms from the stories today. The idioms were: To make the grade, to break the deadlock, to sweep something aside, to raise the bar, to be a victim of your own success, and to weather the storm.

Listen to the stories again to hear the idioms in context.

Nketiah makes the grade at Oxford

When Eddie Nketiah and his teammates travelled to the famous university city of Oxford, it was to face Oxford United in the FA Cup. Oxford United, or the Yellows as they are known by their fans, play in the EFL League One which is the third tier of English football.

Arsenal fans may have been concerned about the slow start at Oxford’s Kassam Stadium. The Gunners looked in control, but didn’t manage a single shot on target in the first half. With Gabriel Jesus out of action, Arsenal looked less like the league leaders.

After 64 minutes, the Egyptian midfielder, Mohamed Elneny broke the deadlock and opened the scoring. And then it was time for Eddie Nketiah to prove he could step in for Jesus at the front. Nketiah scored twice in under 10 minutes to ensure the Gunners advance to the next round of the cup, and reassure the fans that Arsenal’s front line is in safe hands.

Final score: Oxford United 3 - Arsenal 1

Seagulls sweep the Boro aside

Roberto De Zerbi must have been delighted with his team’s performance against Middlesbrough on Saturday. Brighton thrashed their hosts 5-1 at the Riverside Stadium with a commanding performance. The Seagulls hammered the Championship side and kept the pressure on for the full 90 minutes.

The star of the show was the Argentinian world-cup winning midfielder Alexis Mac Allister who was subbed on just after half time when Brighton were winning 2-1. Brighton are playing so well that the final result was not much in doubt before Mac Allister’s arrival. The Argentinian showed his quality when he raised the bar even higher with a brace of goals, contributing to a remarkable scoreline, given the strength of their opposition.

Final score: Middlesbrough 1 - Brighton and Hove Albion 5

Victims of their own success

Manchester City have a mountain of fixtures piling up ahead of them. With matches in the FA Cup, Carabao or EFL Cup, Champions League and Premier League, City’s squad is set to be tested. The Manchester side have something like 2 matches a week for the next 6 weeks.

Fortunately for Pep Guadiola, the City squad has such depth that his side cruised past Chelsea securing a 4-0 victory without Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland leaving the bench.

If Guardiola can keep his starting 11 fresh, City will be in a good condition to weather the storm.

Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Your challenge this week is to complete the gaps in the following sentences. I have found examples of each of these idioms in news stories online and one from a song and edited them slightly and removed one word from each. You need to listen to the sentences and fill in the gaps with the missing words from the idioms.

Number 1. Marcus Rashford scored one and assisted another as the Red Devils ______ aside the Toffees in the FA Cup third round.

Number 2. The massive rise of e-scooters has made them _________ of their own success.

Number 3. The Blues _________ the storm and, midway through the half, Chelsea regained the lead.

Number 4. It took three days and 15 votes, but eventually, the party was able to come to a compromise and _______ the deadlock and elect a new speaker of the house of representatives.

Number 5. The horror video game was so scary, it really ______ the bar for the whole genre.

Number 6. This is ground control to major Tom, you've really made the _______ and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.

Leave your answers to the language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Task

I really enjoy reading your responses to these task questions so I’m going to keep asking them. This week, I’d like you to answer two questions:

1. What’s the most difficult thing you have ever done? Were you afraid that you wouldn’t make the grade?
2. Have you ever been the victim of your own success? Perhaps you did something too well at work and now everyone relies on you?

Share your ideas in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week’s football phrase.

Today’s football phrase is ** ******. This phrase is used to describe shots that would score a goal if they weren’t blocked by a goalkeeper or defender. This phrase describes shots that do score as well - it’s just used to differentiate such shots from those that missed the goal whether or not they were saved. You see this phrase on match reports. You see the total number of shots and then the number of shots that were ** ******.

If you know the answer, be sure to leave it in a comment on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Before I finish, here are the answers to last week’s challenge.

Number 1. When I heard the news I was so angry. It was very hard to stay composed after that.

Number 2. Due to an unfortunate typo, the team had to reprint the match programme.

Number 3.The team were looking confident and playing well and they will be in the pink if they can score a first-ever win.

Number 4.My sister is going to have another baby. I think she’s going to have to extend her house.

Number 5. I visited Rome to celebrate my birthday. It’s an amazing city with so much history and some stunning architecture.

Number 6. Oxfam believes climate change is frustrating the efforts of millions to escape poverty.

Number 7. The manager got the team all fired up in the dressing room at half time.

Number 8. She snatched the photos out of his hand before he had a chance to look at them.

Number 9. The attacking player turned and ran into the box and looked like she might score, but she turned too far and stumbled and lost control of the ball.

And that’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.