Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too.

I'm Faye Faye and I'm joined by Georgie.

Hi Faye, how are you?

Very well, thank you. How are you, Georgie?

I'm pretty good, thank you too.

Faye, I've actually been reading a book lately and I was really enjoying it, but towards

the end, the author just shoehorned in a random side plot that didn't really make sense with the

rest of the story. It was quite disappointing. Oh no, what a shame. Now, you just use the phrase

shoehorn something in and that's what we're learning in this program. It's a verb with a couple of meanings

but I think it'll help our listeners if we explain what the noun shoe horn means first. Okay, I can do

that. A shoe horn is a piece of curved material like plastic or metal that we put in the back of a

shoe to help our foot slide into the shoe more

easily. Right. So you could say that it helps to squeeze your foot into a small or tight space.

So the verb shoehorn something in means you force something to be included somewhere. It doesn't

quite fit. Yes. So, Faye, if you remember my example at the

beginning about the author shoehorning a random plot into the story, that's about forcing

ideas and concepts somewhere they don't belong. Let's hear more examples.

I used to love using this app, but now they've shoehorned in loads of features, and it's just too complicated.

My friend recently started her own business, and now she just shoehorns it into every conversation we have.

It's so annoying.

I really want to mention my website in the speech, but I'm not sure I've got enough time.

I'll just have to shoehorn it in at the end.

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