Big deal

Big deal

Today’s expression is a big deal. No, that’s the expression: “big deal.”

This is extremely common and I’m sure you’ve heard it. But I want to make sure you understand how and when to use it.

This is an idiom and it means that something is important, noteworthy, or significant. This is an idiom, so you would not use it in the most formal types of communication. But you use this in business, with friends, family, in a wide variety of contexts.

You would say, “This is a big deal” or “That’s a big deal” if you want to say something is important. Joe Biden is the current president of the United States. But he was vice president in March 2010, when he attended a bill signing ceremony at the White House.

Barack Obama was about to sign his signature health care reform into law. It was a big deal. Democrats had been trying to reform our health insurance system for decades and they repeatedly failed. Finally, Barack Obama and a slim majority in the legislature had passed the reform and Obama was about to sign it. This was important, it was significant. Barak Obama had just been introduced when his vice president leaned in to give him a private whisper in his ear.

“This is a big (swear word) deal,” the vice president whispered into Obama’s ear . Except there was a live microphone nearby, which picked up the comment and the swear word. This was classic Biden; it was repeated over and over on television after the event.

So when something is important or significant, you can say, “This is a big deal.” Or, to paraphrase the former vice president, “The healthcare reform is a really big deal.”

It doesn’t have to be good; you can say something is a big deal if it’s bad. Streaming losses at Disney and other companies are a big deal. Investors are taking them seriously and they’re starting to run out of patience with the spendthrift ways of the industry. You’ll hear more about that on Thursday’s lesson. You’ll learn that Disney, for example, is laying off thousands of workers, cutting back on content. The CEO lost his job. This is a big deal. It’s important. It’s not good, but it’s important. It’s a big deal.

If you want to say something is not important, something is not significant, it doesn’t mean very much, you can say it’s “no big deal.” I doubt the streaming businesses at Amazon and Apple are profitable. They probably lose money on their streaming services .

But for them, it’s no big deal. They make so much money on other things, they can afford to lose a little on streaming. Plus, their streaming might enhance the value of other parts of the business. Okay, so maybe Amazon loses money on Prime Video. But if it makes more people become Prime members, and those people buy more from regular Amazon, then the losses in Prime Video are no big deal. They’re not important.

In the U.S., kids obsess over where to go to college. I did. Parents obsess over where their kids will go to college, so much so that some of them break the law to boost their kids’ chances of getting into prestigious universities . They study these books—parents and kids—they study these books and lists that rank colleges and universities by quality and prestige. They try to get into the highest-ranking university possible. They measure their own self-worth by how high up they can get on the list of colleges as a seventeen-year-old.

But a lot of successful people find that where you went to college is no big deal. They say it doesn’t matter much in the long run; it’s not important. It helps you get your first job. It gives you bragging rights. But sooner or later, the market figures out who are the good workers and who are not, and after a few years it doesn’t matter where you went to college. It’s just not a big deal.

I am maybe 80 percent in agreement with that statement. Harvard opens doors that are never open to other people. But if, as a student, you couldn’t get into Georgetown University (#22) and so you went to the University of Wisconsin (#38) instead—that’s probably not a big deal. That’s probably not important. They’re both good schools; the precise positioning in rankings is not important. It’s just not a big deal if you went to number 38 instead of number 22.

You can use “no big deal” as a way to be modest. If you do something nice for someone, and that person thanks you, you can say, “Oh, it’s no big deal.” That means, “I don’t deserve that much credit.” It’s a way of deflecting credit or being modest.

If a friend picks you up at the airport, you should thank your friend profusely. In New York, an Uber ride can cost $75 or $100 from JFK airport to Manhattan, so if someone picks you up in New York, you owe your friend a big thank you (and possibly dinner). But if your friend is being modest, he or she might say, “Ah, don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal.” That’s a way of being modest, deflecting credit.

One more way to use “big deal.” You can ask, “What’s the big deal?” That means, “Why is this so important?” I think a lot of people are asking, “What’s the big deal about ChatGPT?” That means, “Why is ChatGPT so important?” You can ask the question genuinely. If you ask the question genuinely, this means: “Why is ChatGPT so important? I want you to tell me.”

But often you ask it sarcastically. If you say, “What’s the big deal about ChatGPT?” you might mean, “I don’t see why ChatGPT is so important.” Obviously, the members in our ChatGPT Challenge are learning firsthand how to use it, so they know why ChatGPT is a big deal.

Quote of the Week

Here’s a quote for today, it’s by Lorraine Hansberry, a playwright. She says, “Never be afraid to sit a while and think.” Lorraine Hansberry: “Never be afraid to sit a while and think.”

See you next time!

That’s all for today’s Plain English. I want to say a big welcome to everyone participating in this week’s Plain English ChatGPT Challenge. If you registered, make sure to get in there and do today’s activity. The instructions are in your e-mail. Then, go into our WhatsApp group and talk about what you learned, what you thought, how you did, all that stuff.

If you didn’t make it in, if the deadline passed, if you’re listening to this months or years later, still check out PlainEnglish.com/GPT. I have a feeling we’ll find some way to get you involved in the future.

Remember, we’ll be back on Thursday, when we’ll talk about the changes streaming services are making and how that will affect us as consumers. See you then.