Down the pan

Learning English Conversations

BBC

Education, Language Learning

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2015

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When things are not going as planned, we can say they've gone ‘down the pan’, but which pan is it?

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.
0:06.0	The English We Speak
0:09.0	From BBC learning English.
0:11.0	com Hello and joining me today is Neil.
0:15.0	Hello everyone.
0:17.0	Helen you know my friend Jeff, the documentary maker?
0:23.4	Oh yeah.
0:24.4	Well, he had this great story he was about to make a film about,
0:28.3	the most expensive wedding in the UK.
0:30.8	Really? So what happened? Has he finished it? Well he was due to film the
0:35.8	wedding on Saturday but then yesterday he got a call from the bride. Don't tell me
0:40.8	the wedding's off? It is.
0:43.0	After all that hard work, everything just went down the pan.
0:47.0	Went down the pan?
0:48.0	What pan?
0:50.0	It's an expression we use informally to say something disastrous has happened.
0:55.0	It's not the cooking pan we're referring to here, it's actually the toilet.
0:58.6	Ah, the toilet, oh yuck!
1:02.2	Just imagine when you flush the toilet, everything gets washed down the pipe.
1:07.0	That's what I mean, down the pan pan everything's gone. Total disaster. Here are a few examples
1:16.7	Jason had great dreams of becoming a football player but they went down the pan when he broke his leg.
	...

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.