This is the English we speak with me Faye Faye

and me Phil we're going to look at an adjective about

organizations and people that are difficult to trust

fly by night. fly by night.

Fly by night is a compound adjective that literally means something that flies in the night.

Yes, fly by night originally described companies who would disappear overnight,

taking all the money they owed with them.

It's usually used before a noun.

My friend bought a second-hand car last month. It's already

broken down but the company has disappeared. Are they a fly-by-night company?

Yes, we can use it more generally to talk about companies or people who are unreliable or difficult to trust.

If it looks like someone is running a fly-by-night operation, it's best to avoid them.

Listen to these examples. I applied for a job but when I went for the interview it looked like a fly-by-night company

so I turned them down.

The agent I bought the ticket from was a fly-by-night operator. Once I got

to the airport, I couldn't get any help. I got my roof fixed, but it was a real fly-by-night job. It's already started leaking.

You're listening to the English we speak from BBC Learning English and we're learning the

expression fly-by-night, which is a way of saying that a person or a business is untrustworthy.

In the last example, we heard about a fly-by-night job.

Yes, so you can also use fly-by-night more generally

to talk about things related to untrustworthy people or businesses.

A flight by night company might do a flight by night job if you hire them.

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