IELTS Speaking for Success - 🛑 10 Cliche idioms you should stop using

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

For this episode, together with Jessica from All Ears English, we picked 10 cliché and cringe-inducing idioms that many English learners seem to use way too often. We'll show you how to use them more naturally and provide alternatives to help you express your ideas more clearly and effectively. Tune in and have a great day! - Transcript and vocabulary: https://successwithielts.com/s09e16 All Ears English podcasts: https://www.allearsenglish.com/episodes/ IELTS Energy course: https://www.allearsenglish.com/course/ielts/ IELTS Energy YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@IELTSEnergyTV Book a class with Rory here: https://successwithielts.com/rory Get exclusive episodes on IELTS Speaking parts 1, 2, and 3: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s09e15 Our IELTS Writing course: https://linktr.ee/wfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2023 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely, I'm Maria. And my name is Rory. And in this episode, we're going to talk about idioms. Rory, have you ever met people who use idioms in every sentence? Yeah, it's weird. What's the weather like today? It's raining cats and dogs. Did you enjoy the concert last night?

No, it wasn't like cup of tea. How often do you drink whiskey? Not very often. I'd say once in a blue moon. How did you manage to finish all these essays? I had to burn the midnight oil. Why do you get up at 5 a.m. in the morning? Because the early bird catches the worm.

It sounds really strange, right? It does. So for this episode, we picked 10 idioms that everyone seems to be using poorly or incorrectly. We're going to show you how to use them naturally. Okay? Ready? Yes, and to do that, we have a very special guest. Jessica is the Director of Curriculum Development at All-Ears English, and she's also one of the co-hosts for the IELT's Energy podcast as well.

And she's an ex-examiner of 14 years. Hey, hello, Jessica. Ooh! Hi, hi, everyone. So you have All-Ears podcast and IELT's Energy, right? Tell us about your shows. Yeah, so the All-Ears English podcast, I'm on there sometimes, and it's Lindsay and Michelle and Aubrey,

and they talk about fluency. They dig deep into grammar and vocabulary and even culture on there. We actually have another podcast now, the Business English podcast from All-Ears English, which is also amazing. And the one that I'm on that I think your listeners will dig the most is the IELTS Energy podcast. So me and Aubrey have two new episodes every single week. We talk about all the skills of IELTS, you know, how to master everything listening,

writing, speaking, and lots of fun vocabulary episodes. So, Jessica, you heard our introduction, right? How was it for you? Was it natural? Were you okay with that? I mean, no, a lot of those idioms are cliche at this point, and native speakers don't use them a lot. If this is an idiom like raining cats and dogs, you know, that is the great example, because that is one idiom I tell my students like never to use,

really? Because like, nobody says that. But if it's an idiom that you learned in your first year of English, where you've seen it on three or more idiom lists online, then, like, don't say it. So it's raining cats and dogs is an old idiom. Nobody uses it, right? Rorya, would you use it? Well, I would, but not to convey the meaning about the weather. You would use it to make people laugh like we did in our opener, which is a use for English, but it's not something general. That's a very specific use. It's like the irony, I think. It's not the real meaning that you want to convey to people. I mean, that's when we use any cliche, right? Because we're using it in a sarcastic way. So we let the other person know, like, make it a joke. This is cheesy. And then everybody laughs.

What would you say? How can we make it more natural? So if it's raining heavily, just like, like, what can you say? I say, like, it's raining buckets or it's pouring. outside, right? So pouring isn't exactly an idiom. I guess it's used idiomatically in that sense, right? Because the water is pouring from the sky or gushing from the sky, right? But I would say, yeah, it's like raining buckets. I say that a lot. So the neutral option is like it's pouring down. It's British and American, right? Yeah. I wouldn't say bucketing. We don't say that here. Our next idiom is, it's not my cup of tea. For example, I did yoga yesterday. and it wasn't my cup of tea.

Jessica, would you say that? Again, like Rory noted earlier, I would say it to be funny. And guys, like when you're doing that, I know this is hard to convey as a non-native, like sarcasm, how do I do that? That's a really difficult language skill in another language.

And it's all about the intonation. You know what I mean? It has to be like high and extreme. Like, it's not my cup of tea. Like, it's really just like, high descending into. and then I know that, or they know that I'm joking. I would just say like, that's not really my thing.

Yeah, that's not my thing. You see, your listener? Oh, I did yoga yesterday. That wasn't my thing. Isn't that a British English, like, idiom instead of like, would you like some tea? Like, do you want a cup? I've seen it in movies. Rory, is that a thing?

Is it an idiom? Or is it just like one of these weird expressions that it has a name that I've forgotten right now? But it is a British thing, yes. For tea, specifically, you don't ask someone if they want a cup of bourbon. That'd be a lot of bourbon. Why not? Would you like a cop? Oh, God. Maybe I would.

And then go blind afterwards. If we talk about it's not my cup of tea, then I would, it's like Jessica said, it's not my thing, it's not really my thing, or it wasn't really my thing. Although, you could maybe take the edge off, it's not my cup of tea by saying it's not really my cup of tea, like adding in the really there might break it up a little bit. But it's not the first thing I would reach for. And here's the thing. Like, listeners, sometimes I think students hear an episode like this and they think, well,

why are you telling me what people don't use? You know what I mean? But here's another reason why this is useful is because the amount of pop culture that everyone takes in these days, right? Movies from all the years, about all the years, TV shows, music, books, you're going to see and hear these idioms all over the place. They are cliche for a reason. You know what I mean?

because they're used all the time. They have been. So it is useful totally to know what they mean and recognize them. But it's better to say these other alternatives now we're giving you. Our next idiom is it's a piece of cake. Something that is very easy, for example, making pancakes. Pancakes, you know, pancakes. Making pancakes is a piece of cake.

Rory, what would you say? Do you ever use it? It's not in the full form, no. But I've heard people say just like piece of cake in media. But that's not the whole thing, not it's a piece of cake, just piece of cake, to describe something easy. But it's not in huge numbers in the media that I've seen or talking to real people. So we don't say the full thing, it's a piece of cake, no, piece of cake, no, piece of cake, no, piece of cake. Piece of cake, yeah.

Do you ever say it? Sometimes, I mean, yeah, I have been known to say that. I think normally, though, I just say easy, peasy. or if you want to make it longer like easy peasy lemon squeezy, whatever you want to like rhyme with that. But I like that note that sometimes we don't use the whole idiom though. I did a YouTube video a couple years ago on IELT energy TV about the half idioms that natives use. Like when in Rome, like we never say the whole thing.

When in Rome do as the Romans do, like that takes forever. So instead we just say when in Rome. And so there's these like half idioms that you can convey to sound more natural. But yeah, like I do comment like that, piece of cake. Yeah, I've said that sometimes, but my favorite is easy, peasy. And the Rory, you don't use like piece of cake, but you heard it. I've heard it, yes. It's not something that I would say, though.

I usually just say it's easy, and that's about it. But then I'm not very imaginative sometimes. It sounds like pizza cake. But no, that's not what we're saying. Pizza cake. That's important. Our next idiom is once in a blue moon, which means not very often. For example, Rory lives in Scotland, I'm in Moscow, I see him once in a blue moon.

Rory, do you ever say this? This I have, again, heard before, but it's not something that I've said more than once or twice. It's not something you would use regularly. It's usually in response to a question, like, how often do you do something? You say like, oh, once in a blue moon and then move on to the next thing. But that's not with any regularity. I don't think there's, I don't think it's something that people use to describe their situation very often. What about you, Jessica?

I actually love the phrase that you just used instead of once in a blue moon being like, not with any regularity. Like that, like, that's such a smart sounding phrase. Oh, you like that one. Then you're going to love the other one, which is not with any degree. of any regularity, or not with any great degree of regularity. That's the other one as well. That's exhausting.

Why would you say that many words if you don't have to? Come, come to Britain. We have excessive numbers of words for everything. Okay, the next one is interesting. Burn the midnight oil. Rory, could you tell us what it means? Burn the midnight oil. It is my favorite one, because I'm trying to lead a revival for people to start using it.

However, to burn the midnight oil is to work. work through the night on something. Jessica, is it used today? Or is it a cliche? Should we learn it? Should we use it? Yeah, I mean, use it if you want to. I, you know, honestly, like, any of these idioms, guys,

if they, like, click with you, if they resonate with you, if they are fun for you to say, then say it. Like, it's not going to ruin communication. It's not going to, like, you know, stop a connection from happening. The thing, like, idioms and slang, guys, if they're fun for you to say, A, then say it. Like, have fun with words that you're using. Use English that you enjoy.

Do I say this? Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, honestly, there's not a lot of context for me to say this at this point. You know, I'm 43. I don't burn the midnight oil anymore. I mean, maybe when I was like a university or maybe in my 20s or something, but, you know, now I go to sleep at a proper time and I sleep well and I wake up early.

So I don't have the opportunity to use it that much. But yeah, like, I do hear people say it sometimes. If you talk about your university years, any other synonym that you would use, like, to say that you stayed up late. No, I can't think of any, like, idiomatic or slangy synonym. It would just be in, like, the intonation and describing how little I slept, I could be like, oh, like, I did not sleep at all. Maybe just throwing in a double negative in there to emphasize, like, didn't sleep at all. I worked through the night. There's a good phrasal verb we can put in there as it said in him worked through the night.

Oh, well, phrase of the bobs, dear listener, you see, praise the verbs are better than idioms work through the night. The click is in the description. Okay, okay, what about like I pulled an all night? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that one more common, I would say. That's a good one. I don't know why. It sounds like it's something that came from America over to the UK.

But if you asked me to explain why, I couldn't. It just sounds, there's something American about it. I don't know, like, pull, pull something is more of an American thing. Do Americans have the phrase, like, pull a fast one? I'm wondering if that is an overlap. Yeah, to trick someone. Yeah. Yeah.

I think this might be an American one. It's still cool, though, but it's not, again, one you want to overuse. Our next idiom is one of my favorite ones, Bob's Your Uncle. For example, just open Google Podcasts, type ILD, Speaking for Success and Bob's Your Uncle, you'll find our show. So, Jessica, do you ever say this, Bob's Your Uncle? No. You know what I say instead?

I say, Tadda! Like, that's what I would say, literally, like, instead of that. So you want to find IEL's Energy, just type in IEL's Energy and, ta-da, there's our podcast. Because really all you're doing is, like, presenting. Tada, okay, Bob's Your Uncle. Rory, do you think it's British English? I was about to say, I think this is a British. thing, but why it's never been used by Americans, I don't know.

Like you say, maybe Tadda is the alternative. We have used it. Duke has many bobs in your country. We have tons of bobs. Everybody has an uncle bob. Again, like watching a movie or TV show that was made a long time ago or about a time, you know, in the past, that's when I would have come across it. Come across.

Frazzle verb. I'm going to keep highlighting your phrase of verb course, because that's so cool. Every time I say a phrasal verb would be like, to-da! Hey, uh, IELTS for Success phraseal verb course. So, yeah, like I've come across it, but never used it myself. Okay, Roy, could you give us enough example to make sure that our listener does understand it? Yes, go to SuccesswithIOTS.com forward slash podcourses and download our Fraser Verbs course today. And Bob's your uncle. You're a phrasel verbs master.

The next idiom is the early bird catches the worm. I say the early bird gets the worm. Catches? Rory, do you say catches? I'm more likely to say gets, but I'd wonder if that's because of the influence of American culture over the years, it's expanded. I say that sometimes, and I know it is cliche and overused, but that is something I still hear people say, honestly. And again, like, some of this does come down to context and your lifestyle, right? Like, I am not likely to use or hear people say burn the midnight oil, but I am likely to hear people use. the early bird catches the worm or gets the worm?

In what context? Like, oh, Jessica, like, do you get up early? Yeah, because I have to get done with a lot of work before I get my son at 3 o'clock and the early bird catches the worm. But I was thinking about, well, the alternatives might be. And I would usually say to get in early. And some people talk about to physically go into a place early.

I hear it used to mean getting work done early, get your work in early. For example, give us a sentence. Oh, well, somebody said, like, oh, why are you up at this time? And I was like, well, I think it's important to get in early. That was a phrasal verb. You know, the medium that I think is more general that could be used in this context and a variety of contexts talking about early morning to say the crack of dawn, you know,

like if you want to convey this idea that you get up early to do something, to do anything, or even if you didn't mean to get up early, but you did, right? He could be like, oh, I was up at the crack of dawn this morning. I don't know why. I just couldn't go back to sleep. Or, oh, my gosh, I'm so tired. I had to wake up at the crack of dawn because I had all much work to do.

I'm going to sleep in tomorrow. Yeah, I was up at the crack of dawn. I was thinking as well about what Jessica was saying about using half of the idiom here. And you can't use it, but you can't make a slight modification just by saying, well, you know what they say about and then half of the idioms. So in this case, it would be, you know what they say about the early bird, and then the other half, you assume the other person knows what you're saying. That's a really good point, actually.

You could also, I think we also use this to be like, like, cute with friends, you know, if they are like super productive and get up early and do stuff, you're like, okay, early bird. And again, it's just taking it from that idiom, but just using those two words, yeah. But it's not the whole thing. It's the part. Like, you know what they say about that midnight oil? I don't know why I'm doing that with my hands. I say if you learn an idiom, learn the full thing and use the full thing as it is.

Okay, don't just, yeah. Only super natives feel what they might do and like how they can change what part to use, what part not to use. Oh, Maria, no, experiment. Just not in an IELTS exam or anything like that. Okay, cool as a cucumber or as cool as a cucumber. No. No, also. Yeah, I mean, this, I've, you know, I've heard it, I've seen it.

Like, it's used sometimes. But it does sound super cheesy to me, just very cliche, you know. How would I describe someone that's cool as a cucumber? Well, I would just say they're super cool. You know what I mean? Just throwing in super in there for the adjective. But cool as a cucumber really means, like, calm, unflappable in the face of challenges, right? somebody that is

yeah, even keel, I guess, is a phrase we could throw in as a synonym. Yeah, or you're doing this right now. So it reminds me of just calling someone Zen. You could say that as an adjective, which is kind of slangy. Like, no, he's super Zen. It doesn't matter what dumpster fire is happening around him.

He's going to stay super cool. Although on the subject of expressions that we'd use alternatively, I went on a bit of an adventure to find some alternatives to this, and I discovered something, because the words I would use are unfazed and nonplussed, which just means that it doesn't affect you. But apparently, in America, nonplussed means something completely different to what it means in the UK. So if I said that somebody was nonplussed, what would you say? How do they feel? If they're nonplussed, it means they are unimpressed, yeah.

Over in the UK, apparently it means that people are confused. So it's funny how there's this one word that's got two totally different. different meanings. That's so odd. But I've only heard the American usage. I haven't heard that used any to mean anything else besides how we use it. Yeah, I would say, let's see, this will be in response to someone asking how you feel or how you liked something, right? So if somebody was like, what did you think about a vet last night? Did, you know, was it useful? Did you make a lot of new connections? I could be like, I was kind of nonplussed, actually. It was It was pretty boring and useless.

To be as busy as a bee. I love that. Jessica, are you as busy as a bee these days? I'm always busy as a bee, man. That's fun to say. You know, because it sounds like a bee. Busy as a bee. Do I say that, though?

Yeah. Again, I know it's a cliche, but it is something I'll throw in there. Let's see, what would I say instead? Maybe to, let's see, exaggerate. We exaggerate a lot in English to make a point to emper. emphasize a point so I could be like, oh, I don't get a moment's rest these days or I don't have a moment free these days. Like, no, that's not exactly true. It's an exaggeration. But it does convey like I'm super busy. Roya, would you say this? I wasn't thinking about that. Although I like Jessica's alternatives because the only one I could think of was just being a busy bee, which is a slight paraphrase of the original.

I'm a busy bee. I've heard that one before. I'm a busy bee. That's adorable. But then I hear people use a busy bee. expressions about insects all the time, like being a social butterfly and things like that. So it all kind of fits together for me. You know what's crazy? Social butterflies need to visit wallflowers. So if I am a social butterfly, I kind of, what do? What do I do? I visit different places, socialize with people. Yeah, social butterfly is just a classic extrovert. They're good at going and talking to lots of people. People want to talk to them, right? They're not like annoying people. A social Butterfly usually has lots of friends and is outgoing, whereas a wallflower's opposite of that, a wallflower goes to an event with a group of people and does not interact with anybody,

just like stands aside against a wall or something and is very shy. Actually, people often say, like, look at you being a social butterfly. I want to say that it's British, but not for any particular reason other than it's cool and I want to lay claim to it culturally. What do you think, Jessica? It's all of ours. It's a universal idiom. No, it's ours. I'm afraid. Oh, okay. Awesome. It's yours.

I've claimed it now. So let's wrap it up with an apple a day keeps the doctor away. This like exhausted you already. I think they know our message. Come on, please tell me that nobody uses this. Not in the full form. Yeah, exactly. It's a half idiom, right? Yeah, you would still hear people say like, well, an apple. a day. Honestly, like, this is what, why are Apple such a part of our, like, linguistic slang? Like,

you know, what's that movie with Ben Affleck? Goodwill Hunting when he's like, how about them apples? That's become, like, a cliche. People say that. We love to talk about apples. I do hear people use this as talking, like, just whatever's healthy. So, well, an apple a day, like, if you say, well, I'm trying to eat better. I'm trying to have vegetables with every dinner, not have meat. And you're like, well, you know, an apple a day. It's just sort of like a comment on someone else talking about healthy habits. Rory, could you give us an example with half the idiom?

I'm not very healthy. So I don't know if I'm very good at that. Okay, okay. How about like, let's talk about your university days. Let's not. Did you keep fit? Well, then in that case, it would be, well, despite what they say about an apple a day, I didn't go to the gym that much and spent a lot of my time eating pizza. So,

not very healthy. You know, now that we're trying to come up with natural examples, I'm realizing, like, we really do only use this to, like, joke, you know, like, it, I mean, we really don't use this to mean what it means that often. I think it's often, like, sarcastic. Like, if, oh, so here's the story. Okay, I got a good story here. So my, my mom is a dietitian. So she knows all the health food science stuff, right? And she told my son that ice cream is very healthy because it has protein and calcium. And so my son took that and ran with it. And he's like, well, grandma said ice cream's healthy.

I should have it every day. An apple a day, mom. And it's just like, it's, you know, it's a joke type thing. So I think that's really the only time I would use it if it's like to mean the opposite of what it actually means. You know what I mean? Wow. Dear listener, you see how confusing this is. So if you're not 200% sure, idioms for phrase of verbs.

Jessica, you do have a course, right? Yes, guys. So first remember for free our podcast, IELTS Energy, follow it wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out the IELS Energy TV channel on YouTube. And we do have an IELD course, guys. and it now comes with lifetime access and everyone gets personal feedback on speaking and writing

on their final practice test. So do check that out guys. AllEarsenglish.com slash K-E-Y-S. Thank you so much for being with us. Oh. Thank you very much. My pleasure.

My pleasure. Have me on again, okay? Yes, please. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye, guys. You know.