Common English Expressions About Eating and Meals [527]

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In this episode, you’ll learn popular English idioms that include fruit words. These expressions appear often in everyday speech and media, but their meanings are not always obvious. I explain what each one means and how it is used so you can understand them easily and use them naturally in conversation.

These everyday expressions are useful for conversations, exams like IELTS, TOEFL, or CAE, and improving your fluency in real-life situations. Pay attention to how they are used and try to incorporate them into your own English.

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Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, to help you with your conversational skills, your business English skills, interview skills, whatever your goals are, we're here to help. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free trial lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. Okay, and in this particular lesson, it's an advanced lesson and this advanced English lesson is about expressions and expressions relating to eating. Okay, so we've got a list of 13. I'll go through them with you one by one and I'll give you some examples. To eat one's words or to eat your words. When you eat your words, you effectively have to apologize, yeah, okay, because you've made some big bold statement and it doesn't come true or you're not able to deliver, so you have to eat your words, okay? So let's say there's somebody's put forward a proposal and it's a real, real strong proposal, but it's a bit risky and you stand up and say, this is never going to work. This is really, really going to cost us a lot of money. And at the end of the day, we're not going to make any profit at all. Unfortunately, three months later, this has been one of the greatest successes ever. And therefore, you have to eat your words and say something like, huh, well, I was wrong. Yeah, I thought it wouldn't work. But in fact, it has. So take my hat off to them. It's really, really, they've really done well. So you have to eat your words. Okay. So we can make somebody eat their words. So we perform better than they had expected. Perhaps your football team, you at the beginning of the season said, oh, they're going to be in relegation trouble again. You know, the same old, same old, they'll win a few games, they'll lose a few, win one, lose four or five, and then we'll struggle. But lo and behold, then halfway during the season, your team is in the top three or four. You have to eat your words, but you're probably glad to eat your own words because your team is doing much better than you had anticipated or forecast. Okay, so to eat your words. Next expression, to eat into one's time or money. Okay, so lots of things can eat into our time and eat into our money. Taxes will eat into our money all the time. If the government increased the rate of tax on the food we buy in the shop, the value-added tax, or they increase the income tax, then you're going to have less in your pocket to spend. So all of these changes, high inflation eats into our money, eats into our disposable income that we have, and we're not able to buy the same quality or quantity of goods that we were able to buy six months ago or 12 months ago. So rising inflation eats into our money. Increased taxes by the government eats into our money. So what eats into our time? Well, I find lots of things eat into my time. When I have to reply to lots of emails, which I'm happy to do, but they eat into your time because you have to think about the answer for each of them. Correcting questions and correcting exercises that students have done eats into my time. So work eats into all of our time. You know, we just wish we had more time to do things that we want to do, not to have to spend more time doing things that other people want us to do because it eats into our time. Spending long hours on the internet certainly eats into people's time. For kids, and particularly when they should be studying perhaps, playing computer games eats into the time. So takes up, to eat into something means to take up time, to take up more time than it actually should. Eat somebody out of house and home. Well, this is going to happen and it does happen on a regular basis when our sons come back to visit us. None of them are living with us anymore. But when they do come back to visit once a month or once every two months, the first thing they do is head for the fridge. The second thing they do is they empty the fridge. And then the third thing they do is they ask, is there anything else to eat? So when they leave at the end of the weekend, we say, ah, they come and go and all they do is they eat us out of house and home. So it means literally they take everything that's possible to eat and then they disappear. So to eat somebody out of house and home is to eat as much as you can, probably without offering to pay for anything and certainly not going to restock the fridge before they go. So to eat us out of house and home. To have somebody eating out of your hand. What does that mean? Well, when you have somebody eating out of your hand, you have them exactly where you want them. Have you ever gone into the park and you stand and you watch people who day after day go into the park, they stand very still, they put some nuts or breadcrumbs on their hands and within no time at all, the birds are sitting on their arm, pecking the food from their hands, or indeed the squirrel hops up on the fence and then the really brave squirrel jumps up and takes the nuts from the hand. So you have them eating out of your hand. So when you have somebody eating out of your hand, that's exactly what happens. You have them exactly where you want them. So you could say that about daughters and fathers. Ah, she's amazing. She knows exactly what buttons to press. She has her father eating out of her hand. So if she wants something, dad. If she needs something, dad. If she really wants something, dad, please. So she has dad eating out of her hand. She knows exactly what buttons to press to get what she wants. Okay, so if you have somebody eating out of your hand, it means you control them. If you need something, you ask them. You don't have to ask twice. Okay, so to have somebody eating out of your hand. To lose your appetite. Well, when we lose our appetite, really, we just don't feel like eating food. And this could be for lots of reasons. It could be because you're sick, you lose your appetite. It could be because you don't like the look of the food and you lose your appetite. Or indeed, if you're stressed or under pressure at work, you might lose your appetite for several days. You go into a restaurant and you get this very, very strange smell. And when you look on the counter, the food, you go, I've suddenly lost my appetite. I couldn't eat that. I think I'll try somewhere else. Okay, or if you're working, you've got a project to complete and you really can't sit down and eat something because it's constantly on your mind, then you lose your appetite for one or two days until you get that project finished, you sign off on it, and then you can sit back and perhaps have a nice meal. So to lose your appetite means to lose your interest in food temporarily on the short or medium term basis until you get back that interest in food. Next, to quench one's thirst. Now, be very careful here with the pronunciation. Quench. Quench. To quench your thirst. When you quench your thirst, you effectively feed your thirst. So you've been out running, it's a hot day, you get back, you're parched, you're breathing heavily, you need something quick. So you get a bottle of cold water and that will certainly quench your thirst. Or you get a bottle of chilled fruit juice, that will quench your thirst. So something that gives a real tang to it and then you'll feel that you've got a nice, pleasant taste in your mouth and you can breathe easily again. So to quench your thirst. So make sure you understand what it means and make sure you practice with that pronunciation because it's quite an unusual word and you've got that q u at the beginning. So qu quench, quench, to quench your thirst. Another meaning is to satisfy your thirst, meaning you were thirsty and then you drank something, so you have satisfied your thirst, or as we've said, you can quench your thirst. The next expression, to do something on a full or an empty stomach. So we've got two options here. Yeah, people will often give you advice when you're about to go for a run in the park or to run a half marathon. Well, you're not going to go out for a run now on a full stomach. You'll be sick within a couple of kilometers. So they're giving you a warning that you shouldn't go out so quick after a meal. Or what my parents always used to tell me when I wanted to go for a swim, well, you can't go and swim on a full stomach. You've just eaten. So why don't you wait an hour till you've digested your food and then you can go into the water and have a swim. So good advice. And then if somebody says something about an empty stomach, you shouldn't give a presentation or you shouldn't go to a meeting on an empty stomach because, well, either your tummy will rumble during the meeting and everybody will be looking at you or you might feel a little bit nervous or you may be lacking some energy and you might need the energy for the presentation. Indeed, before an exam, parents might say, well, don't go to the exam on an empty stomach. Have a good breakfast. Don't eat very little because during the exam you might get tired. So if you've got some food inside you, you'll feel good, you'll think better and perhaps you'll perform better in the exam. So parents will say anything to try and buck up your spirits and try to get you through those difficult exams. So you can do something on a full stomach or not do something on a full stomach or do or don't do something on an empty stomach. You should never drink on an empty stomach because if you go out on a Friday evening and you haven't eaten for the day, the chances are after a couple of glasses of wine or a couple of beers, you're going to be a little bit unsteady on your feet. So shouldn't drink on an empty stomach. To be famished or to be peckish or to be full up. Okay, so if we are famished, it means we really haven't eaten for a long time and we're looking forward to a very, very big meal. If you're peckish, it means you're not so hungry at all and you're just going to pick at a little bit of food. So somebody might ask you, are you hungry? Nah, I'm a little peckish. I'll eat something, but I don't want anything big, just something small, a snack. And if you're full up, well then you've no room for any more food. So famished, you're really, really hungry. Peckish, yeah, you could eat something, but it's not a lot. And full up, you've no room for anything. So different levels of how you might feel. To feel faint with hunger, when might you feel faint with hunger? Well, if you haven't eaten for a while or you feel like you haven't eaten for days and days, you probably have, but you just feel that way. You can say, I feel faint with hunger, meaning if I don't eat something quickly, I am literally going to faint or I'm going to collapse. So somebody might be a little bit white in the face, not looking so well. And you say, what's wrong with you? I feel faint with the hunger. I haven't eaten since breakfast. And I was working all through lunchtime. There was a sandwich sitting on my desk, but I just couldn't get to it because I had so much work to do. So I'm faint with hunger. So I really need a decent meal. Otherwise, I'm just going to collapse. So when you feel faint with hunger, it's because you haven't eaten for a while, you're lacking energy and you really, really need to get some food inside you, something to give you that little bit of a boost, a little kicker. Next, still talking about eating, to eat like a bird. Now, if somebody has a really small, small appetite, they take a very, very small amount of food for breakfast and a cup of tea or coffee, and then a small amount of food, almost non-existent on the plate, and then a really, really small meal in the evening time. We can say, oh, there's something wrong with mum. She's got an appetite like a bird at the moment. She hardly eats anything. I think we should encourage her or persuade her to go to the doctor. There's obviously something wrong. So somebody who wants to watch their weight, make sure they don't go up a dress size or go up a suit size, then they will reduce the amount of food they eat and they say, ah, I'm on a diet. I'm eating like a bird these days. Yeah, eating like a bird. And again, if somebody eats, sorry, if somebody asks you, are you hungry and would you like something to eat? If you're really hungry, you might say, ah, I could eat a horse. Now, you won't actually eat a horse. Well, you might in certain countries, but I could eat a horse is a really old expression, meaning you've got a very, very big appetite at the moment because perhaps you've been running, perhaps you've been doing some workout in the gym, or perhaps you've just had one of those stressful days and the best way to get over it is have a nice big meal. So yeah, I am hungry. I could eat a horse. To satisfy your hunger, yeah? So to satisfy your hunger, it could be something like the pizza with all your favorite toppings. It could be a bag of chips or fish and chips from the local fish and chip shop. Or it could be a plate of sushi, whatever it is that you really fancy that will satisfy your hunger. Because when you're hungry, it's hungry for a particular plate and not anything or everything will do that. So you want a particular meal, a particular plate, a taste from some particular restaurant and that will do the trick. It will satisfy your hunger. Yeah? Okay. So to take the edge off your hunger. And then finally, to work up an appetite. Well, when we work up an appetite, we usually get ourselves in a situation that we're going to be really hungry after a while. So, oh yes, I've been playing tennis all afternoon and I've really worked up an appetite. I could really murder burger and chips or I could really murder a pizza. So you work up an appetite. You get yourself into the situation that you've worked hard. You've been running, you've been sweating, you've been working out and now you can afford to sit down and eat a lot of carbs. Or you send the kids out into the garden and say, Duck, don't come back for a couple of hours. I've got a bit of cooking to do. When you come back, I'll have lunch or dinner ready. So it'll give you guys time to work up an appetite, go out there, run around, expend some of that energy that you got over the summer holidays. And when you come back, I'll have your favorite food ready for you. Yeah, so to work up an appetite, build it up, get it ready so that when you get the food, you'll eat it not so quickly, but you'll really, really enjoy it. Okay, so there we have 13 particular expressions relating to eating. Try to practice, try to use them, see how many of them you can use and take three or four over a week and then three or four more. If you don't understand them, then you can contact me, www.englishlessonviaskype.com. I'll give you some more examples. As always, I appreciate you watching and listening. This is Harry. Thanking you for watching me and join me again for the next lesson.