Name: 14の英語の慣用句＆食べ物＆飲み物からの格言 (14 ENGLISH IDIOMS & SAYINGS from food & drink)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:22:35.000Z
Duration: 28 min 13 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

I'm Gill at engVid, and today's lesson is on idioms and sayings which are based on references

So, these are sayings that are sort of metaphorical, meaning they're not literally true, but they

mean something in a different kind of context.

So, you'll see what I mean when we look at the examples.

So, the first one is this, which is actually true literally, as well as metaphorically

perhaps, but it's: "There's no point crying over spilt milk."

If you drop the milk and it goes all over the floor, you've lost it; you can't use it,

Well, milk costs money; it's inconvenient to lose some milk when you need it for your...

You know, I... if it happens to me, I feel annoyed and upset because I've wasted some

milk which I needed, really, and you have to then go out and buy some more.

And it makes a mess; you have to clean it up.

If you don't clean it up properly, it goes bad and it starts to smell.

So, there are all those things to think about.

But then this saying is: "There's no point crying over spilt milk."

The idea is once it's spilt, you can't do anything about it - that's it, you just have

to get on, clean it up, carry on, go and buy some more or do without it; don't bother getting

Drink your tea without any milk in it - whatever it is.

So, this is what people say sometimes if someone's complaining and they're upset about something,

people say that just to say: "Well, there's no point being upset about it.

You've just got to move on and be positive; carry on and don't just be negative all the

The main thing is to do something positive about it, and not just cry...

Then the next one, if you say: "That's not my cup of tea" or "That's not really my cup

of tea", it doesn't mean literally: "That's not my cup of tea; that's somebody else's

If somebody invites you to go to a film at the cinema, and maybe it's a horror film,

and if you don't really like horror films, you probably don't want to go.

So, you say: "Oh, that's a horror film, isn't it?

Tell me when there's a different kind of film on, and I might go to that with you, but horror

It's not my taste; I don't enjoy that sort of thing."

So, next one, if someone is on the gravy train...

If someone said: "Oh, she's on the gravy train", it may be that someone has got a job, or maybe

it's like a politician sometimes - they get the kind of job where they earn a lot of money,

they have the opportunity to go out for meals in restaurants quite a lot, and it's all paid

The "gravy" is the kind of sauce that you put on your food.

In English cooking, it's a kind of brown sauce; it could have beef flavour in it or chicken

flavour, but it's hot liquid, quite thick.

It's a bit like a soup, and you pour it on your meal with...

If you have a meat and vegetable meal, you can pour gravy onto it to give you a kind

So, it's the idea of sort of rich food and something nice to eat.

So, if someone is on the gravy train, it means they're in a position where they can have

a really nice time and lots of nice things to eat, and generally not have to worry about

Okay, next one: "He knows which side his bread is buttered."

I think you only put it on one side usually, don't you?

If you put butter on both sides, it would get very messy because you'd be putting the

butter down onto the plate, it would stick to the plate - you know, not a good idea.

So, usually you put butter on one side of your bread, there.

So, one side is buttered; has butter on it, and the other side is not buttered.

So, I think we all know if we have butter on our bread, we can see which side is buttered;

But this is not literal; this is metaphorical.

So, if somebody knows which side his bread is buttered, that means he knows...

If he has a job in an organization, he knows who the important people are, and he knows

who the less important people are, and he won't waste any time with the less important

He just wants to spend time with the more important people because they have more power

and influence, so this is someone who is rather calculating, you could call it.

If someone is calculating, they work out in an organization: "Who is the best person to

"Some people I wouldn't waste my time with because they don't have any power in the organization."

It's not a very nice attitude, but there are people like that.

So, that kind of person who is calculating about who they're nice to and who they don't

have time for - they are the people who know which side their bread is buttered.