Business English for Success

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cool adj. good, fashionable

gross, nasty adj. disgusting

pig out v. eat a lot, overeat

screw up v. make a mistake

awesome adj. great

Exercise 1

Edit the business e-mail by replacing any slang words and phrases with more formal
language.

Dear Ms. O’Connor:

I am writing to follow up on my interview from last week. First of all, it was awesome to
meet you. You are a really cool lady. I believe I would be a pro at all the stuff you
mentioned that would be required of me in this job. I am not a workaholic, but I do work
hard and “take care of business.” Haha. Please contact me if you have any questions or
concerns.

Sincerely,

M. Ernest Anderson

Idioms

Idioms are expressions that have a meaning different from the dictionary definitions of
the individual words in the expression. Because English contains many idioms,
nonnative English speakers have difficulties making logical sense of idioms and
idiomatic expressions. The more you are exposed to English, however, the more idioms
you will come to understand. Until then, memorizing the more common idioms may be
of some help.

Table 4.18 Idioms

Idiom Definition
a blessing in
disguise

a good thing you do not recognize at first

a piece of cake easy to do
better late than
never

it is better to do something late than not
at all
get over it recover from something (like a perceived
insult)
I have no idea I don’t know
not a chance it will definitely not happen
on pins and
needles

very nervous about something that is
happening
on top of the world feeling great