Hello everybody, my name is Coach Shane and welcome to easy English expressions.

You and me every day, come on, let's master English.

Hello everybody, welcome back to Daily Easy English Expression.

It's December 6th, 2014.

Are you getting ready for Christmas?

I hope so.

Actually, I have finally the chance to spend Christmas with my mother and father.

It has been, oh my goodness, so long, about 20 years, over 20 years since I've been able to spend Christmas with them.

So I have prepared a couple of presents and their very large presents. So when I walk into their house as Santa Claus, I will say,

Give me a wide birth.

Give me a wide birth.

Give me a wide birth, give me a wide birth, give me a wide birth, that is today's expression,

and that is what I will be saying when I bring presents to my mother, father, and sister on Christmas.

I'm so excited.

What does it mean to give me a wide birth? Okay, give G-I-V-E. Give me a

wide, W-I-D-E. What's the opposite of wide? Narrow. Very good. Narrow, N-R-R-O-W, birth, B-E-R-T-H.

Give a wide birth, that means give a lot of space.

Give a lot of space.

So birth has this nuance of a large amount of distance and it comes from shipping so one ship to the

shore so a ship when it's coming into port or when it's coming near the shore it must maintain a safe distance. Otherwise, of course, it could have a great problem.

So it needs to maintain a distance and that distance is called a birth. So it's a space, it's a large

distance. It's a safe amount of distance of separation from the ship to the land.

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