Welcome to Easy stories in English, the podcast that will take your English from ok to good and from good to great.
I am Ariel Goodbody, your host for this show.
Todays story is for advanced learners.
The name of the story is what makes a snake.
You can find a transcript of the episode@easystoriesinenglish.com makeasnake thats easystoriesinenglish.com makeasnake there you can also download the episode as a PDF.
A content warning for this episode this story contains rude language, sexual harassment and bullying.
It is not suitable for children.
Today's story is what happened when I tried to write a story that uses lots of business vocabulary.
In business, people often talk about buzzwords, which are words that become popular and then get used so much that they start to lose their meaning.
I decided to make fun of buzzwords in this story, but then the story ended up being a lot more serious than I expected as you can probably tell from the warning.
Anyway, this is a long story, so let's get right into the vocabulary explanations Synergy S y n e r g y is when two groups working together is more powerful than the two groups working separately.
Synergy has become a big buzzword in business, basically a word that everyone likes to say that doesn't mean very much.
When two businesses working together produce good work.
You could say they have good synergy.
A line manager is the manager who is directly above an employee in a company.
If you work in a big company, there will be the big boss who runs the whole company and then the little boss, the person directly above you who is your line manager.
So for most people their line manager is usually their favorite or least favorite person at work, depending on said line managers personality.
When you touch base with someone you have a short conversation with them to check how a project is going.
In business, people often touch base via email or short meetings.
If you dont touch base with someone very often you might think the project is going really well when it isnt.