Hello, and welcome to our series of episodes on idioms.
Maria and I have specially selected different idioms to talk about lots of different areas in your life to bring up your level of English to a high standard.
First of all, I'm gonna give an example, paraphrasing the idiom.
Rory will guess the idiom, and then we will give you the meaning, the origin, and more examples.
I know what idioms we are going to be talking about, but I havent seen the sentences, and I have no idea what order they are going to be in.
So, Rory, ive been trying very hard to help you with your birthday party.
Ive been trying super hard to help you with your party.
Have you been bending over backwards?
Yeah, to bend over backwards.
I can also say to lean over backwards, so to bend or to lean over backwards, but usually.
And the idiom means to try very hard to do something, so to do whatever it takes to help someone.
And this one comes from gymnastics, where bending over backwards is an important skill that requires a lot of effort to meet the requirements.
She can.
I would bend over backwards for my family, for my friends, or my company is bending over backwards to satisfy my needs.
But also, Rory, it can mean that you help too much, so you put in too much effort, which is, like, not good.
It's kind of like too much.
So it's a bit negative.
Yeah.
Or you feel it's too much.
I have been bending over backwards.