Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 558

In this episode of Speak Better English podcast, you’ll learn popular English idioms that use colours. These expressions are common in everyday conversations and will help you sound more natural and fluent.

We’ll explore idioms with colours like feeling blue, in the red, green with envy, and many more. You’ll hear clear explanations and practical examples so you can use them with confidence.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll:

• Understand the meaning of common colour idioms
• Learn how to use them in daily conversations and writing
• Improve your vocabulary for IELTS, CAE, TOEFL, and advanced English

Listen now and brighten up your English with these colourful idioms.

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. What do I have for you now? Well, in this particular podcast, we're going to look at idioms connected with colour. Okay, so I'll give you the idiom and then I'll give you an example. Okay, so first, black market. So when we get something on the black market, so use the preposition on the black market, it's usually something we get a little bit illegal and probably cheaper, although maybe not cheaper, than we would get it in the shop. Or in fact, when we buy it, we might not be able to get it in the shop at all. And therefore, we have to pay a lot of money because it's illegal. And when we go to somebody who sells it on the black market, we have to be careful who we tell and how we buy it. So, you know, if somebody goes out and they buy the latest copy of some movie that was produced and it hasn't been released yet, and somebody says to you, well, where did you get that? I said, oh, I got it on the black market. Some guy burned a copy of me. He said, but that's illegal. It's okay. I paid a good price. Nobody will know. And the movie is really good. So to get something on the black market. A black leg. Blackleg is usually somebody who nobody likes because they are perhaps breaking the rules of a strike. So if there's a strike on in the local factory and everybody's out on strike and they are picketing the factory, so they hope that no workers will cross the picket line. But if somebody crosses the picket line and goes into work because he's been offered an incentive by the bosses, they call him a blackleg. Okay, somebody who's going against his fellow workers and somebody who people won't like. And then when the strike is over, he will be shunned or for a period of time, the workers won't have a beer with him or they won't sit down with him because they will call him a blackleg, somebody that has sided with the bosses and has gone against his colleagues and has decided to work when really it shouldn't be that way, that during a strike, everybody should stick together. The workers should be on one side and management on the other. Blackleg. Okay, next, to get the green light. Well, when we're talking about green light, we're usually referring to traffic lights. And in most traffic lights, we have the sequence of red, orange, yellow, or orange or yellow and green. Okay, so green is for go. So when you get the green light for a project, it means green for go. Everybody has agreed to go with it. And you can start the project. You're going to get the funding or the money or the support or whatever resources you need. So, wow, I submitted that project last week and it took them a few days to think about it. But my boss came back to me and I got the green light to start. I'm really excited. Okay, green light, green for goal. Next, to be green with envy. Well, when we are green with envy, of course, we are envious of what somebody else has. And usually they have something we would like it. To be green with envy with the neighbor's new car or green with envy about the new set of golf clubs that your friend has, or to be green with envy because he or she got tickets to the football or the rugby match, and you'd really like to go to that. And therefore, you're a little bit green with envy. So anytime somebody is envious, we refer to the word green. Yes? So it's all to do with that desire to have something that somebody else has that you wish you would have. Children are always green with envy. They have a toy, but somebody has something a little bigger. They have a bike, somebody has something a little better. They have a dog, they want something a little different. So green with envy. A green belt. Well, a green belt is nothing to do with karate, although there is such a thing as a green belt, but green belt is usually to do with space in or around a city where there is no development allowed. So like a park or parklands or areas of grassland where people can play or they want to create a division between one area of a city and another, they introduce or provide for a green belt. So a belt of a strip of land or forest or parks that will not be built on. Okay, and that's usually written into the statute or written into law that this is a green belt zone or a green belt area on which no building can take place. And it's to provide people with recreational space, to provide trees, to give people something interesting to look out of when they are sitting in their apartment or their home, a green belt. Next, grey matter. Grey matter usually refers to our brains, yeah? See, so when we're talking about somebody and we're asking, well, why don't you apply your grey matter to the problem? Meaning, why don't you think about it? Why don't you sit down or spend a few hours or even a night thinking about it using your grey matter, meaning use your brain, apply the best of the people's brains to it and hope that you come up with a solution to the problem. Okay, so it's to put our intellect or our brains together and try and find a solution. Literally, grey matter is literally the tissue that makes up your brain or the spinal cord. But when we say, oh, well, why don't you use your grey matter? It's a sort of slang way to suggest that we need somebody to think, somebody intellectual to come up with solutions. Okay, and next, when something is in black and white, it's pretty stark or pretty obvious what it is. Yeah, so black and white usually refers to print. So newspapers were often black and white. So very dark ink against a white paper background. So when things are in black and white, it's pretty obvious what they are. You don't need them explained to you. You can see it quite clearly. So in a business meeting, somebody questions the memo and said, well, what's all this about? He said, well, I think it's black and white, really. It's quite easy to understand. It shouldn't present any problems to anybody. Of course, in most situations of black and white, there's always a little bit of grey in between where an area where not everybody will understand. But if we do keep things simple, like our English, then it can just be a simple question of black and white. And it's very clear and obvious what it is. In the red. When we're in the red, it's a reference to our bank accounts. So usually when we're in the red means we have overdrawn a bank account, we have no money and we owe, in fact, money to the bank. And oh God, I'm in the red again. Last few days of the month always happens to me. I never have enough money. I keep trying to keep some money, not to spend it all, but there's always something comes up, a visit to the dentist, a problem with the car. And guess what? There I am in the red again. So in the red is that little red colour you see in your bank statement, which tells you, sorry, no more money. And you have to wait that few days until you get paid. When we are off colour, no particular colour mentioned here, we're just off colour. So when we are off colour, usually means we're feeling a little unwell. What's wrong with you today? You look a little off colour, meaning you're not quite yourself, or you might be a little white in the face or a little grey, indicating that you might be a little bit sick, a headache or a stomach upset, something like that. Yeah? So when somebody is off colour, they're not quite themselves, not quite firing on all cylinders or not quite 100%. Once in a blue moon, once in a blue moon. When we look at the moon, it's usually white, so unless there's some particular celestial occurrence happening, which happens occasionally, and you might get a red moon, or it looks red, but once in a blue moon means something that doesn't happen so often. So when do you get a pay rise? Ah, once in a blue moon, meaning almost never. Have you heard from Michael since he went to university? Ah, him, no chance. We might get a letter once in a blue moon if we're lucky, but he's always got something more important to do, so very little chance of that. So something that doesn't happen so frequently, something that doesn't happen so often, we refer to it as once in a blue moon. And there's an old song, there's a line in the song, once in a very blue moon. Yeah, I heard it once in a very blue moon. So something that doesn't happen so often. Okay, paint the town red. Well, when you want to paint the town red, you want to go a little bit wild, you want to have a bit of a party, you want to spend a bit of money, you get dressed up, you go out on a bit of a binge, visit a few bars, good wine, a champagne, a good meal, and you really let your hair down and you paint the town red. So to paint the town red means to splash out with a bit of colour and to act a little bit recklessly, but really have a bit of fun. Okay, so perhaps the week or two weeks before you get married, you go out on a bit of a blast to paint the town red or you win some money in the lotto, you take your friends out and you paint the town red. Okay, the next is a red herring. Well, a red herring is something that gets you out often the wrong track or on the wrong scent and it's going to lead nowhere. Yeah, so you're trying to get something resolved, trying to fix a problem. Somebody makes a suggestion to you and after a few hours of looking at it, you realize that was a little bit of a red herring, meaning it wasn't so successful. It was leading you in the wrong direction. So you just give it up and you go back to basics and try to find another solution to your problem. So red herring means something not successful or something that's not going to lead to success. Okay, so it's something that will distract you and take your attention away from what you should really be doing. The next is when we see red. Okay, so see as in look at, S-E-E. When we see red is we get really annoyed. So somebody says something to us and that just clicks a little message or triggers a little message in our brain and we snap and go, oh God, no, no, I really hate that. So we get angry very quickly and we see red. Okay, so it often happens with somebody that we perhaps we don't like or somebody we don't respect. And when they say something to us, we just snap and we get very, very angry. Other people might say the same thing to us and we don't really care what they say. We just take it as it comes and we laugh it off. But when it's introduced by somebody that, as I said, we don't have any great time for, then we tend to see red and become angry or annoyed or frustrated. And we might shout a little bit. Okay, so to see red. Next is to be tickled pink. When we are tickled pink, it means we are very happy, we're very pleased, we are very delighted with something. When somebody tickles us, when they tickle us in the arm, when you tickle a child, they giggle and they laugh and their cheeks get a little bit red or pink. So to be tickled pink means to be delighted. So if you present your mother with flowers on Mother's Day, she's tickled pink that you remember it. If you present her with her favorite chocolates, she's even happier. She's really tickled pink the fact that she got flowers and chocolates on a special day like Mother's Day or indeed her birthday. Or it could be your favorite aunt or your grandmother and you spend some time with them and they are tickled pink that you took time out of your busy schedule to spend some time with them. Okay, so it usually means we're excited. It usually means we are happy. It doesn't have to be anything amazing. It just happens to be that somebody has thought about us, which doesn't happen so often. And when we see that, we appreciate it and we can say, oh, I'm tickled pink. Yeah. So when your mother tells your sister that, oh, she got a visit from you and you brought chocolates and flowers, your sister might be a little jealous that you, the favorite son, have given your mother so much happiness and she was really tickled pink. Okay, next we have a white elephant. Well, of course, a white elephant is not something you see very often, okay, because it would stand out in the forest and wouldn't survive very long. So a white elephant is something pretty big and something unusual and something not useful. Okay, so when we spend our money or time on something that people seem to be saying was a waste of time, they say, huh, that's a white elephant. So the government decide to build some new monstrous convention center. They spend a load of taxpayers' money on it. And everybody knows that it's too big. It's in the wrong place. So when they're looking at it being built, they say, you know what's going to happen? That's going to turn out to be a white elephant. Why? Because it's in the wrong place. We're building it at the wrong time. It's a waste of money. We could spend that money on something much more useful. So will they? No, they won't. It will turn out to be a white elephant. Okay, so white elephant, something waste of time, waste of money, something useless, unwanted, or of no great value. Okay, so turned out to be a real white elephant. Okay, so not literally an elephant, but something probably big, but usually useless. Okay, a white elephant. A white collar worker. Well, a white collar worker is a throwback to the old days of the Industrial Revolution when the management wore white collars on their shirt. These were the days when the shirts had a detachable collar, so you could wash and starch the collar separate to the shirt. So management, those in the offices had white collars and the workers had blue collars. So it was to distinguish between the workers and the management. So he's part of the white collar. He's part of management. Okay, so white collar workers. They occupied the offices and the blue collar workers occupied the shop floor. And usually the managers were in the offices above, so they could look down on those on the shop floor. Okay, so looking down on those below, white collar workers. To whitewash something, to whitewash something is to cover it over. Whitewash is like a very weak paint. And when you paint something, you cover it over. So when you whitewash, it means to a cover up. So it means we're trying to either hide something or we're trying to avoid other people seeing something, which again is to hide it. But we whitewash, mean it's cover up, to gloss over or to hide. So often happens when we're talking about governments. So they've spent money on this white elephant, but when it's presented in the budgets or the figures, they try to cover it over. They try to whitewash it so people don't draw attention to it. Or they don't draw attention to it. So to whitewash means to cover up, to wipe out or to try and avoid something being noticed. The money spent on that industrial unit or the money spent on that new trade fair or the money spent on that new monument in the center of town was a complete waste of time. I guarantee that the government will try to whitewash over that so that people don't know or understand exactly how much money was spent on it. Okay, to whitewash. And then finally, to do something with flying colours means to be really, really successful. So it's not a specific colour, it's with flying colours. So we use it as follows. He passed his exams with flying colours, meaning he got the best mark or very near the top mark you could possibly get. He got his driving test with flying colours, really did well. And now he's so happy with himself, he can go and insure his car and start driving. So he passed with flying colours. How did he do in his period of six months probation? Ah, no problem. I passed it with flying colours. I did really, really well. Okay, so that's the end of those English idioms with colours. And if you want to contact me, well, as always, you can do so on www.englishlessonviaskype.com. Well, I'm always happy to hear from you and include where I can some of your suggestions. So as always, thanks for listening and join me again soon.