What’s up? You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!
Jump the gun. Jumping the gun is our first expression of today. I’ll give you an example and it’ll be easy to understand: one day my friend told me that his company was developing a new web application that was really cool. Everyone in the company was pretty excited about it, as they were sure their customers would love it. They were so excited that when the tech staff told them that the web app would be ready in a couple of weeks, he and his team (who are in Marketing) started planning a beta test.
Now, a beta test – I’ve recently learned – is something you do to have your customers test your new product before the official release… But at that stage the product should be about ready to be released in the market. So you get the product about ready, nearly finalized, and that’s the beta version. Then you go ahead and you ask your most enthusiastic customers to take it for a spin and give you their feedback.
So what happened was that my friend’s team started planning the beta test and even announced it to their customer base. Several customers reached out to say they wanted to participate in the test.
Then, it happened. A few days later they heard from Tech and the news wasn’t good: “We’ve found a number of bugs and the app isn’t ready to be released.” My friend’s team had now to get in touch with all the customers and explain that the test was being delayed. My friend said “Clearly, we jumped the gun. Got excited and started planning the test but it was too soon.”
True story, everyone. They jumped the gun on the announcement of the beta test, and I think this happens a lot – it seems to happen frequently. Have a look at this tweet by someone named Samuel:
ANNOUNCEMENT: I jumped the gun in announcing my current project too early. Unfortunately due to technical issues and time I'm going to have to put it on haitus. Apologies if I've disappointed anyone.
Ok, and here’s our second idiom of today, one that I’m sure you guys will get very quickly: jump to conclusions. You know when someone doesn’t have all the facts pertaining to a situation but they’ve already concluded this or that and are actually taking action based on their premature conclusions?
That happens everywhere, and I think it happens a lot. To be honest, I’ve done it and it’s usually not a good thing. Depending on what’s being discussed, if you jump to conclusions before knowing all the facts you could get in a state of panic, or fear… very often unfounded, but you don’t know that yet, right? Because you haven’t heard all the details.
So in looking for examples I found out that the Book of Proverbs from the Bible has this quote: Don’t jump to conclusions, there may be a perfectly good explanation for what you just saw. That about sums it up. Here’s another one: you see your friend’s boyfriend talking to an attractive woman in a restaurant. You want to talk to your friend immediately and tell her what you just saw, but then you learn he was talking to his sister. You jumped to conclusions right there.
Can you give me a true example from your life? Let me know! Talk to you soon.
Key expressions
jump the gun
jump to conclusions
Vocabulary
take it for a spin = testar algo pela primeira vez (gíria, metáfora de quando alguém dá uma volta em um carro para testar)
to reach out = iniciar contato com alguém, entrar em contato
unfounded = sem fundamento
That about sums it up = isso resume/diz tudo, basicamente é isso
* Observação: No tweet, Samuel escreveu ‘haitus’, mas a escrita correta da palavra é ‘hiatus’.
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
Hi Ana ! I´d like to thank you so much for your podcasts. They are amazing, the way you explain the terms and expressions are incredibly intuitive and funny for a english beginner student like me, to understand the text without read the transcript. I go hiking while listen to your podcasts !
Ana, this happen all the time. What’s worse it’s that depending on the deadline, the release is done anyway. The team than have to work round the clock to release a new correction pack :\
very good.. i don’t know if i told you yet but i’m living in campinas now. I came here almost 2 years ago to work in an international technology company. A few years ago i was thinking move abroad but since started working in this company i changed my mind :) You practice english all the time here and the company it’s also very nice. But maybe one day i will still move, who knows.
