Make hay while the sun shines

Hay is the stuff that you see in this image. Farmers use it with horses and other animals. As you can see, and have probably seen in person sometime, this is essentially a kind of dry grass. So, it makes sense that it would be difficult to process correctly in the rain, and therefore we have the expression "make hay while the sun shines" which means to take advantage of good conditions to do something that you need or want to do. I think it's a good practice to make hay while the sun shines, because you never know when things will change. It's easy to procrastinate (especially for me!), imagining that tomorrow or next week will be just as good as today for doing something. But sometimes tomorrow or next week isn't as good: you may not feel well, you may have other things that are more urgent, etc. The same is true for enjoying life. It's easy to postpone things that would bring you pleasure, with the idea that there's plenty of time. But if the sun is shining, why not make some hay?

Review vs. revise

Although these two verbs seem to be almost the same, in fact we use them differently. To review something is to read it or look at it again. To revise something is to make changes in it. Here are some examples to help illustrate the difference:

Although he said he had reviewed the lesson, he couldn't answer any questions about the material.

Dear Bob, I've revised the press release and attached it to this email. I hope you agree with the changes!

Could you review the budget before we send it? I want to be sure everything is correct.

They realized that the timetable for the conference was unrealistic, so they revised it and sent the new infomation to everyone.


You can see that you could use both of these verbs to describe different steps in one process: after reviewing a composition that you had written, you could revise it and (hopefully) make it even better!

Throw your hat into the ring

To throw your hat into the ring is to apply for a position, or take part in an election; the idea is to say that you would like to compete with others to obtain a title, post, or job. For instance, sometimes a new job in a company is advertised externally and also internally, and this gives employees a chance to throw their hats into the ring.




A few examples:

You: What do you think about the new sales director opening? Do you think I should throw my hat into the ring?

Your boss: Absolutely! I think it would be a great move for you at this point.

*****

After a lot of consideration, Rebecca decided not to throw her hat into the ring for Mayor; she felt that it would impact her personal life too much.

*****

Me: Are you glad you threw your hat into the ring for sales director?

You: Well, I'm not sure yet! The process is more complicated than I expected... But I hope the outcome will be great.

Me: Whatever happens, I'm proud of you!

*****

As you can observe, we usually put for to connect the action with the post or position.

"Chorizo words"

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of having lunch with eight very cool colleagues.
At one point, we started talking about all the words that have come into English without being translated.
For example, chorizo. This is a Spanish word, and we don't translate it. It's worth noting that chorizo from Spain is totally different from chorizo from Mexico, but the point is that chorizo is chorizo in English.
It turns out that these words are called loanwords, and we have a lot of them in English. You can find a nice list of loanwords from Spanish here.
Loanwords is the correct way to refer to these words that have been adopted in English, but I may keep calling them chorizo words anyway, at least for a while.
Do you have any favorite loanwords, in English or in another language?

This post is dedicated to every InfoJobber who has ever come to an English lunch... I've enjoyed your company every time!