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Podcast: What’s the point?

By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online

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Podcast: What’s the point?

Jul 09

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What’s up? Hoje eu falo sobre expressões super comuns com a palavra point, como there’s no point. Não perca!

Transcrição

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!

So, let’s get started: remember last week’s episode, when I talked about the idiom ‘cry over spilt milk’? Well… there’s no point, really, in crying over spilt milk. There is no point. Point, in this expression here, means something like purpose or use. There’s no use, there’s no purpose in crying over spilt milk.

So for example: you decide to plan a surprise party for your classmate Tony the next 13th of February. Then you find out Tony and his family are moving to another country on the eleventh. There is no point now in planning a party for Tony, right? What is the point of planning this party? Tony won’t be around anyway, and the whole point of the party was… Tony.

So I bet that if you regularly watch TV shows and movies you’ve heard these expressions with “point” before. They’re uber common – every native speaker uses them a lot. The question is, are you using them? So that’s the point of this episode. Yep! To give you more exposure and make you more familiar with these terms.

What’s the point of taking your family to a nice restaurant right after they had lunch? There’s no point in doing that. It’s pointless. What’s the point? Taking them for a meal when they just ate? Pointless. Investing in new software for your company to improve your financial records when you have not made one sale yet… What’s the point? I would say that’s pointless. No useful result will come of that. What are you going to do with new software? You haven’t even sold a unit yet! It’s a pointless investment. There’s no point in making this investment and buying new software.

So, check out what this person, Lauren, tweeted out:

There’s no point in making April Fools jokes anymore. The world is enough of a joke as it is.

— Lauren MacAskill (@Laur_MacAskill) April 1, 2018

So Lauren has a pretty low opinion of the world right now. For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, April Fools’ is the first day of April, and you know what that means in Brazil. In the US and in the United Kingdom as well, people love to pull pranks on April Fools’. Lauren thinks this is pointless since, in her opinion, the world is enough of a joke as it is.

If it’s sunny outside and the forecast says “sunny” for the whole week, it’s pointless to take an umbrella with you when you go out. Telling a kid who’s crying to stop crying is usually pointless. What’s the point of doing that? The kid will not listen and they won’t stop crying. Expecting a cat to bark is pointless. Buying stuff on sale that you’re not going to wear is… pointless. I’ve done it! But now I look at it and I think “What was the point of buying this stuff?”

Tell me: what exactly is it, in your life right now, that would make you ask yourself “What’s the point of this? Why am I doing this?” Let me know, and see you soon.

Key expressions

There’s no point
What’s the point?
Pointless

Vocabulary

uber = super, very (informal)

pull a prank (on someone) = pregar uma peça em alguém, fazer uma pegadinha

Author
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Ana

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.