Hello and welcome to the English like a native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week two day two of your English five a day series two.
This is the series that gives you a healthy daily dose of English vocabulary so
that you can grow in confidence and start to feel more like yourself when speaking in English.
Episodes of this particular series run from Monday to Friday so released five days of the week and we record all of the vocabulary that we cover in our five a day database which you can access for free by clicking on the link in the show notes.
Now listen as I go through today's snapshot this will give you a taste of what's to come in today's episode.
During the meeting the interviewer put him on the spot with a challenging question about the company's recent losses
as he began to respond she cut him short trying to steer the discussion towards solutions instead of excuses but her tone seemed designed to cut him down to size.
Later he murmured a quiet remark to his colleague about how unfair it felt.
That was today's snapshot don't worry if that seemed in any way confusing or unclear
because we're now going to dive deep into today's vocabulary.
We start with the idiom put someone on the spot to put PUT someone on the spot SPOT to put someone on the spot is to cause them embarrassment or difficulty by forcing them at that moment to answer a difficult question or to make an important decision.
For example
if you are at a dinner party and it's important for you to make a good impression at this dinner party and you're with your partner and your relationship has been going through a rough patch you don't know
if you want to commit to the relationship long term by getting married and having children or
if you want to walk away from it completely you just don't know it's been a bad few months and then your new boss who is sitting right next to you turns and says oh you two look like a lovely couple is there marriage and kids on the cards which means do you plan to get married and have children now
because you're in a situation where you want to make a good impression you don't want to seem negative and you certainly don't want to cause an argument with your partner in front of everybody you feel
like you have to respond in a way that's positive but then that would give your partner false hope oh what a difficult thing to respond to what do you say what do you do it's very hard to deal with that question and you don't want to say I'm not going to answer
that
because that will cause all sorts of embarrassment as well so your boss has put you on the spot here's another example the journalist put the politician on the spot with her question about tax increases I think politicians are often put on the spot