Catch Word #270 – Bottom of the barrel

Culips Everyday English Podcast

Culips English Podcast

Self-improvement, Education, Language Learning, Courses

4.8 • 968 Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve all been in situations where our options were limited, and we had to accept something less than what we wanted. In this episode, Andrew and Kassy explain two idiomatic expressions that you can use to describe these situations, bottom of the barrel and slim pickings. Catch Word is the Culips vocabulary series designed for intermediate and advanced English learners. By listening to these audio lessons, you can learn idioms, expressions, and phrasal verbs that native speakers use all the time. Tune in to take your fluency to the next level! Fun facts Andrew mentions the expression “slim chance” in this episode. Did you know that the phrase “fat chance” means the exact same thing, even though “slim” and “fat” are opposites? English can be quite fascinating, don't you think? Expressions included in the study guide Bottom of the barrel Slim pickings To settle for [something] To inch towards [something] Decent What can you do? Copyright: Culips.com For more information about this episode, visit culips.com. Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke for Free Image: Mauro Lima (Unsplash.com)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone my name is Andrew and I'm Cassie and this is the
0:10.0	Qup's English podcast welcome back to Kuleps friends. You're listening to
0:15.6	catchword. The series designed for intermediate and advanced English learners and
0:19.8	here we teach you idioms, phrasoverbs, and helpful English expressions that can take your listening and speaking skills to the next level.
0:29.6	Joining me today is my co-host, Cassie. Hey Cassie, how are things?
0:34.6	Hey Andrew and hey listeners, things are pretty fantastic, wrapping up the school year.
0:40.2	Thanks for asking.
0:41.5	You know Cassie, my wife and I went furniture shopping at a local used furniture store over the weekend. I need a new desk and we are looking for a new desk for me and I looked all over the place I looked
0:57.5	top to bottom up and down and I couldn't find anything that I like. It was pretty slim pickings out there.
1:05.4	I think everyone has gone through a situation like that one time or another where
1:10.4	they're scraping the bottom of the barrel searching for something specific or
1:14.7	perfect and they just don't have any luck. Exactly. So everyone my furniture shopping
1:20.4	experience that I had last weekend is the inspiration for this episode and in
1:25.7	this lesson we're going to teach you two idiomatic expressions that you can use when you have
1:31.6	no good options or when you have to settle for something that is less than you wanted.
1:37.6	So those two expressions you just heard Cassie and I use just a second ago.
1:41.9	They are Slim Pickings and bottom of the barrel.
1:45.6	Yeah, these expressions are pretty similar but they do have slightly different nuances.
1:51.6	So we'll make sure to clearly explain them here today.
1:56.0	That's right and listeners before we get started we want to remind you about the
2:00.8	interactive transcript and study guide available to all
2:04.8	Kulips members that accompanies this episode. We designed these resources to help you
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