A curate's egg

Learning English Conversations

BBC

Language Learning, Education

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2022

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Learn an odd expression which means something is a little good but mainly bad

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is a download from BBC Learning English.
0:03.0	To find out more, visit our website.
0:05.0	Hello, I'm Jaiing.
0:07.0	This is the English we speak.
0:08.0	And hello, I'm Neil.
0:10.0	Hey, Jaiing, we were all thinking about going to that new restaurant for lunch. Do you want to come?
0:15.0	No, thanks. I went the other day and once is enough.
0:19.0	Oh, you didn't enjoy it? Was the food bad?
0:22.0	It wasn't terrible, but it was a bit of a curate's egg.
0:26.2	What's that? The restaurant only sells eggs?
0:29.2	No Neil I said it's a curate's egg. We use the expression cure its egg to say that something
0:35.8	is partly good and partly bad. We often use it to describe something bad which also
0:42.3	has good elements.
0:43.6	So when you said the restaurant was a curate egg,
0:46.4	you were saying it wasn't a great experience.
0:49.0	What was wrong with it?
0:50.2	I'll tell you after we listen to some examples of this expression.
0:54.0	That new film is a curate's egg.
1:00.0	Great action, but the story and acting were awful.
1:05.0	The day ended up being a bit of a curate's egg.
1:09.0	It was nice to see my friends, but after the car broke down and I got wet in the rain I wasn't happy.
1:15.0	I think her new novel is a curate egg.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.