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Hello and welcome to the English we.
Speak with me Jain and me, Rob Jain, why is it everyone in our office keeps disappearing?
What do you mean?
Well, every time I want to talk to someone I can't find them.
Like Roy for example.
I need to talk to him about something but he's nowhere to be seen.
Have you seen him?
No, I've not seen hide nor hair of him.
You mean he's hiding from me?
No, Rob, if we say we've not seen hide nor hair of someone, it simply means we've not seen them anywhere for some time.
Do you need to see him urgently?
Yes.
I wanted him to read out some examples, but Neil will do.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of Suki all week.
Maybe she's on holiday.
We haven't seen hide nor hair of the builders since we paid them.
We didn't see hide nor hair of the manager the whole time we were in the office.
This is the English we speak from BBC Learning English.