About the Author Hilary P. is a professional psychotherapist and has practised in the United Kingdom for over 15 years. Hilary has a keen interest in language learning, with a classical language educational background. Hilary's particular interests & experience is in psychology, education & learning, especially online learning and language acquisition. Support For support files and downloads related to this text, please visit https://adeptenglish.com/. At adeptenglish.com, you can also read a collection of free articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers from Adept English. Transcript Learn English 95 How To Speak English Fluently Grass Idioms Hi there, I m Hilary and welcome to this latest podcast from Adept English. This is our weekly podcast and welcome back if you ve listened before and welcome to anyone who s listening for the first time, especially anyone who has just finished our free Seven Rules of Adept English Course. So today I m going to look at English idioms which use the word grass, G-R-A- S-S. An idiom is a word or saying which has a meaning, which might be difficult to work out from the words themselves. Idioms are just the sort of thing which English language learners find difficult, so they re good to work on. Grass idioms then. So first of all, what is grass? Actually [you l]l notice my accent if I Copyright Adept English Production reference: A0095 Page 1
came from the southern half of the UK, I would say Graaaass. I can t quite make myself do that, so I m afraid it s grass for me. You take your pick, you choose what you want to say. Well, grass. If you think about what cows and sheep and horses eat and it s green and it grows in fields. Grass is also what football pitches are made out of unless they re Astro Turf, of course! We grow grass very well in the UK probably because we have a good amount of rainfall and the winters aren t cold enough to kill it off. So unless we re having an unusually hot summer, our grass is very green here. So the first grass idiom is as green as grass. This one is quite easy to explain and you can probably understand this, even if you ve not heard it before. Green is a colour grass is usually green. So if something is as green as grass then it means that it s very green. There are similar phrases with different colours in English. You might say as black as night or as white as snow or if you re talking about someone s face, you might say as white as a sheet. A sheet is a covering that you put on your bed sheets are often white and made out of cotton. Think about what you tend to find in a hotel bed. They re sheets. So you might say When she saw the restaurant bill, her face went as white as a sheet. Anyway - as green as grass is our first saying. Another phrase that you will hear people say - The grass is always greener or the longer phrase is The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. A fence is what divides up fields, divides up areas of land so a fence might be made of wood with posts and rails or it might be a fence made out of metal. You might have a fence to show where your garden ends or to keep your cows and your sheep safe. So The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. If you imagine you were a sheep, in a field eating grass. And although the grass in your field is nice and tasty you look across at the grass in the next field and you think That grass looks even greener, even nicer than what I m eating. So in your little sheep brain, in your little sheep head, you might think The grass is greener. I wish I was in that field. I m not sure that sheep ever have these sorts of thoughts, but it is the origin of the idiom. So when it s used as an idiom, if someone says Ah, the grass is always greener on Copyright Adept English Production reference: A0095 Page 2
the other side of the fence, it means that people often look across at someone else s situation and think it s better than their own. And in this phrase, there s a sense that it s not really better the grass isn t really greener. It just looks that way. So if someone keeps changing their job or keeps moving house and they re never happy, another person might say of them Ah, the grass is always greener on the other side. One of the bits of English grammar that you need to understand here is that the -ER on the end of green so it becomes greener. Green and greener. So here, if you re comparing two green things, and one s more green than the other, you would say That one is greener. You can do this in English with most adjectives, most describing words. So other examples might be Two men one is taller than the other they re both tall, but one is taller or two children the girl is older than the boy. So the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - means that it looks as though someone else s life, someone else s situation, is better than yours. Another phrase you might hear to do with grass is a snake in the grass. So a snake is an animal, a reptile. Examples of snakes would be vipers, Black Mambas or rattlesnakes. In the UK we don t have many snakes. We have adders and grass snakes neither of which are very dangerous. But if you imagine a snake, hiding in grass, perhaps waiting to attack you, waiting to bite you then there s an element of surprise and it s dangerous maybe. So when we say of a person Oh, he s a snake in the grass as an idiom, we mean watch out for that person, he might behave like a snake. And he might suddenly attack you out of nowhere. You won t see him coming. So this might be used in a work context, in an office perhaps. So there a snake in the grass is someone who perhaps you thought was friendly, someone on your side but they turn out to be the opposite of that. In politics too, you might also hear people being called a snake in the grass. Clearly it s not a positive, it s not a complement to say that about somebody! Just a couple of other meanings of the word grass let s do some slang words. Generally in English, when you hear the word grass, it will mean what your lawn is made of, what cows eat, what grows in your garden. But, as is often the Copyright Adept English Production reference: A0095 Page 3
way in English, one word tends to have several meanings and you can tell from the context. So one slang usage of the word grass is to mean cannabis or marijuana which is illegal in the UK, but which some people smoke. If it s in dried leaves form it might be referred to as grass. And another slang use of the word is as a verb to grass someone up. So as a verb to grass someone up basically means that you tell about something bad that they ve done. So this might be say, in school. So one kid in school, one child does something bad and the other kid goes and tells the teacher. So the first kid might say You grassed me up! You went and told the teacher. Or to grass someone up is a phrase you might hear around criminals. Police sometimes use a grass a grass is someone who is a criminal, but who s prepared to give the police information about other criminals. So if you grass someone up, you tell on them. So bear in mind, these both are slang usages of grass. And hopefully you ll be more likely to hear them in a film at the cinema than in real life! If something is really slow or really boring, you might say I d rather watch grass grow or it s like watching grass grow. What the person means that whatever is happening, it s so slow. The grass in the UK is not only very green most of the year but it does grow quite quickly in the summer too. But you would never actually sit and watch it grow that would be ridiculous, that would be silly! So if you say I d rather watch grass grow or It s like watching grass grow, this is a phrase that someone might use if they re being humorous or a bit sarcastic. It shows they re getting frustrated. They might be at a football match and the score is nil-nil and it s really boring. I d rather watch grass grow. A similar phrase you might hear is I d rather watch paint dry which clearly you wouldn t really do either. [ I d rather. means I would prefer.] OK, the next one. Another phrase you may come across he or she has been put out to grass. So to put someone out to grass means that you ve retired them. The person is so old that they are now longer useful to you so they ve been retired, they ve been put out to grass. It seems to come from the idea of a horse, which when it s young you might have as a race horse or you might Copyright Adept English Production reference: A0095 Page 4
use it on a farm. So it s useful until it gets to a certain age. And then, it s not so useful to you any more. It s too old this horse. So you put it out to grass. So as an idiom, it means a person who s worked hard, been useful usually in their work, in their job, but now they re old and slow and they don t work so well, so you retire them. You put them out to grass. Another slight variation on this one we might say That idea has been kicked into the long grass. So long grass means of course grass that has grown, grass that is tall. And if you kick something, that s what you do with a football, you hit it with your foot. Now I don t play golf but if you imagine yourself on a golf course and one of your balls goes into the long grass, you might just forget about that ball. You might just leave the ball there in the long grass, and hope that nobody noticed, it was such a bad shot. So the same can happen with an idea. You thought it was a good thing to suggest something, but it wasn t very popular, people didn t like it, there were all sorts of problems with it. So in the end, we might say We ve kicked that idea into the long grass. This is just the sort of thing that politicians do they try out an idea, it is hugely unpopular, so they kick it into the long grass and hope that everyone forgets it. So today s phrases were:- As green as grass The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence It s like watching grass grow Someone has been put out to grass Or to kick something, like an idea into the long grass I hope that keeps you busy. Enough for now, have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye. Copyright Adept English Production reference: A0095 Page 5
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