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 Fay Fay Faye and I'm joined by Georgie.

Hi Faye, how are things? Not too bad. Thank you Georgie how about you? Yes I'm very well thank you. So in this

program we're looking at an idiom that reminds me of babies and that's throwing your toys out of the

pram or throwing your toys out the pram.

Fefei thought it might be useful to explain the literal meaning of this first.

Yes I think that's a good idea.

Well, a pram is something that you put a baby in.

It has four wheels and you push it.

And it is also known as a pushchair. Now imagine a baby is crying, he or she is really

upset and they're throwing their toys out of the pram. Okay now if you use the idiom to describe an adult who is

throwing their toys out of the pram it means they are acting in a very

childish or dramatic way especially when they don't get what they want?

Yes, for example, yesterday we saw a child in a supermarket,

literally throwing his toys out of the pram.

But when we use throwing your toys out of the pram to describe an

adult we don't mean that they're literally throwing the toys out of their

pram we mean that they're acting in a very dramatic way.

Let's hear some more examples from our colleagues.

I worked with an actor last week and during lunchtime we found out that there weren't any ham sandwiches.

He threw his toys out of the pram and refused to work with us anymore.

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