10 Popular Idioms Used When Criticising Someone or Something [485]

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In this episode, you’ll learn English idioms that are often used when criticising behaviour, decisions, or situations. I explain what each expression means and when it is appropriate. This will help you understand these idioms when you hear them and use them carefully in conversation.

Avoid sounding like a beginner, use these natural English expressions in your daily conversations to communicate more precisely and confidently. This lesson is perfect for anyone looking to improve their English speaking skills and vocabulary. 

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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'd be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. So what is the advanced English lesson about today? Well today's advanced English lesson is looking at certain ways or idioms for criticising or talking about bad experiences. So we're looking at various ways to criticize or talk about bad experiences by using idioms. So they're quite advanced so we'll go through them. As always I have 10. I'll give you the meaning, I'll give you an example and hopefully you'll get a better understanding. So as I said we've got 10 of these idioms in total. I'm going to give them to you then go through them one by one. So the first one to leave a bad taste in my mouth. This means that some experience you've had wasn't enjoyable, didn't turn out right and you really felt bad afterwards. Not physically bad, but bad about the whole experience. It really left a bad taste in my mouth. So let me give you an example. I asked somebody to give me a quote to paint the inside of my house because I didn't have time. So they came along and they gave me a quote and I thought the guys were okay and I listened to them and they quoted me a price which was a little bit on the high side, but I wanted to get it done quickly. And when I came home after two days, oh my God, it was a mess. There was paint all over the floors. They hadn't covered any of the furniture. It was a disaster. It cost me a fortune. Of course, I sacked them immediately and I did it myself. So my experience with those painters left a very bad taste in my mouth. I'll never use them again. I won't be recommending them. And if I could find them on the internet, which I can't, I'd leave a bad review. Okay, so it left, or my experience with them left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not really good experience. Number two, nothing to write home about. Well, this means, well, it's not really so important. I wouldn't get so excited about it. I wouldn't waste my time telling anybody else. Yeah, so the movie I went to see last week, somebody had recommended it to me, but it was nothing to write home about. I was really disappointed. I was keep waiting for something to happen during the movie, but nothing actually did. So I think I wasted my money and my time. It was nothing to write home about. Nothing spectacular, nothing so exciting. And I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Isn't up to scratch. Well, when we mean something isn't up to scratch, it's not up to the standard that you expect or the standards that you live up to. So if one of your pupils is writing some thesis for his end of term exams and you've given him the opportunity to submit a draft so you can comment on it, which is just as well because when you get this particular report, you're not overly impressed. So you ask to see the student after the lessons and when he comes to you, you sit him down and say, well, look, really, this effort, it isn't up to scratch. It's not what I had expected. You really need to do a bit more research. You haven't referenced anything in this. You haven't mentioned where you got your research from. You haven't drawn any conclusions. Basically, it's a poor effort. It isn't up to scratch. And you're really going to have to improve this immensely if you're going to get the marks that you expect to get. So it isn't up to scratch. It's not to the level that I expect it to be. Now, the one I think everybody's heard of, it's just not my cup of tea. Well, we can say this about anything that we don't like. It might appeal to other people, but to you, it's not your cup of tea. Yeah? So, oh, those horror movies, nah, not my cup of tea. Those books about science fiction, no, not my cup of tea. Going and lying on the beach with 2,000 other people? No, thanks. Not my cup of tea. Not my idea of a nice holiday. Give me the fresh air. Give me the freedom. Give me the mountains. I would like that. Now, that's my cup of tea. That's something that I really like. So when something is not your cup of tea, it's not to your liking. It might be to somebody else's, yeah, but it's not to your liking. It's not my cup of tea. Has seen better days. Well, a bit like me has seen better days. When you get to a certain age, yeah, you're not going to improve much from here on in. Okay, so you might have something really near and dear to your heart that you've you've had for many, many years and you don't want to throw it out, but eventually it just stops working. For example, a laptop or a mobile phone and you look at it, the screen on the mobile phone's got a crack down it. There's a chip on the corner. Yeah, it doesn't look so presentable. And when your wife sees it, she says, oh my God, that phone has seen better days. Would you not just trade it in, like offering a great deal on these new iPhones, trade it in, get some money for it and get a nice, new, smart-looking phone? That phone has seen better days, meaning it once was good, but unfortunately, it doesn't look the part now. How can you take that out in the middle of a meeting? People will laugh. It has seen better days. Past its sell-by date. Well, when something is past its sell-by date, it's a little bit long in the tooth, as we say, or it's something that is a little bit outdated. Now, food, of course, when you buy it in a shop, will have a sell-by date. And if something is past its sell-by date, they're supposed to remove it from the supermarket shelves. So that's the literal meaning of it. Okay. But if something that you have that, again, you hold near and dear to your heart, if that is past its sell-by date, then it's about time that you changed it. Okay. So you might just be reluctant to sell that bicycle you've had for 20 years. Can you imagine it? You've had it for 20 years. You've replaced the tires. You've replaced the saddle. In fact, if you looked at everything you've done, you've probably rebuilt the bike two times over. So you're looking at it and think, ah, I think this bike is past its sell-by date. The brakes are not working and the gears are not really good enough. I think I need to trade it in and get one of those new super duper mountain bikes. What do you think? Oh, that's a great idea. That bike has been past its sell-by date for years. Yeah, I'm surprised you still have it. Okay, so something that is past its sell-by date. On its last legs. Okay, well, you've got a television. Well, a sort of a television. And it's, you know, not so big. And when you look at the neighbours and they've got these massive, massive screens on the walls and surround sounds. But your TV, you've had it again for 12 or 15 years and it flashes every now and again and the colours not specific. Your friends come around and say, you know, how can you watch the football with that? I mean, the colours don't even look the same. My team plays in black and white, but this looks as if they're playing in green. Your TV is on its last legs. I think you need to change it before it blows up and sets your house on fire. So when something is on its last legs, it's really about to shut down. It's clapped out. It's just going to give up one day and you won't be able to use it at all. And then you'll be sorry. So again, dump it, get rid of it, buy yourself a new one on its last legs. A letdown. Well, lots of things can be a letdown, okay? People can be a bit of a letdown. The holiday can be a bit of a letdown. A letdown is something that literally lets you down or disappoints you in some way. Oh, that holiday was a complete letdown. I mean, I've been looking forward to it. You know how long I've been planning that holiday and everything planned to the nth degree. I really, really was looking forward to it. But when we got to the hotel, it was shabby. It was dirty. The food was crap. It was a complete letdown. I really felt like coming home. Mind you, the walks and everything, they were great. But having to go back to that hotel night after night, nah, it was a letdown. I don't know why I listened to that guy who gave me the recommendation. That hotel was probably great 60 years ago, but unfortunately, not today. Yeah, it was a letdown. It let me down. It means a complete disaster or a big disappointment. Not going to set the world on fire. Well, how many times have I heard that expression? You could use it to refer to anything. When something is not going to set the world on fire, it's not going to make people sit up and take notice. It's not going to be something that's going to be in the headlines the next day. It's not going to be something that's going to make people go, wow, look at that. Yeah, so it's very ordinary and very ineffective. It's not going to set the world on fire. A football team that is struggling to stay in the premiership, you know, they don't have the money to buy the players of 70, 80, 100 million. So they buy average players from average teams. And when you look at the players they've brought in at the beginning of the season, you say, well, that team isn't going to set the world on fire. We'll be lucky to stay up. We'll be fighting against relegation the same as we've done every year for the past five years. There's no way that team will do anything. They're not going to set the world on fire. Okay, or somebody who is building a new shed in his garden, but he's really, really slow. Well, the pace he's going at, he's not going to set the world on fire. He's taking his time. He might have finished by this time next year, but the way he's going, he'll never finish it. Okay, so just a bit slow and overly methodical. He's not going to set the world on fire. Now, we can use it when we're talking about people in the office. Well, we don't need a hundred people that are going to set the world on fire. Sometimes we need people in our offices that just do the ordinary Monday things, because guess what? That's what has to be done, the ordinary mundane things. So, yeah, you need the rising stars, you need the great sales guy, but occasionally in the back office or some other office, you need somebody who just does what you ask him to do. Yeah, he doesn't set the world on fire, but you know what? He's here every morning. First thing, he's the last one to leave and he gets his work done. He doesn't set the world on fire, but he's good for me. And then finally, like watching paint dry. Well, have you ever sat there and watched paint dry? The most boring and excruciating thing that you can do. So when something is very boring, very painful to watch, very uninteresting, we would use the expression, it's like watching paint dry. So there could be some sports that you just don't see how people get so excited about them. Some people go crazy for some sports, but you say, I mean, it's like watching paint dry, watching a game of chess. Okay, it might be a nice game to play, but watching it is like watching paint dry. It's slow, there's no action, nothing happens, nobody gets excited. Yeah, okay, it's like watching paint dry. So there's lots of activities, sporting activities or other activities that won't be so exciting. And you can use that expression. Oh, that's like watching paint dry. Okay, so it could be a boring TV program. You know, there's no excitement in it. It could just be a discussion about philosophy or psychology or somebody talking about local council rules, something really that you could spend your time doing other things. So, well, listening to that and watching that is like watching paint dry. Boring and uninteresting. Okay, so there we have our 10 idioms and they're 10 idioms that we use for criticizing or talking about some bad experience that we don't want to go through again. So what you need to do is practice them, see how you can introduce them into your speech and if you need any more examples, well, you know where we are and we can help you with any more examples that you need. Okay, so go through them. As I said, the first one leaves a bad taste in my mouth, nothing to write home about, isn't up to scratch, not my cup of tea, has seen better days, past itself, sell-by date, on its last legs, a letdown, not going to set the world on fire, and then finally, like watching paint dry. So try them, practice them, come back to me if you need any further help. I really appreciate when you watch and you listen. If you've got any ideas, just send them to me. www.englishlessonbyskype.com and I'll join you again for the next lesson. This is Harry saying goodbye.