Breathe new life into

Breathe new life into

Today’s English expression is to “breathe new life into” something.

To breathe new life into something is to take something that’s old, maybe losing a little of its popularity or its relevance, and to make it new and exciting again. I’ve got a few great examples to share with you today.

First, let’s start with how I used it earlier. I said that the multi-sensory, immersive experiences are trying to breathe new life into the old masterpieces. The old Van Gogh masterpieces have been around for over 130 years now. They’re great masterpieces, but they’re old. These immersive Van Gogh exhibits are trying to make the old masterpieces seem new and exciting again. They are trying to breathe new life into the old paintings.

Have you read the book, “Anne of Green Gables?” I’m going to guess that most of you have not; I haven’t. It was written in 1908 by the Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It’s a classic children’s story, primarily for girls because it features girls as the main characters. But some of you might have seen the Netflix series, “Anne with an E.” That’s a television adaptation of the old novel. It still takes place around the turn of the Twentieth Century, but the TV series is breathing new life into the classic old novel. It’s make it fresh and new again in a new format.

So those are two examples of using “breathe new life into” when talking about art. Here are a couple examples referring to things. JR bought an old dresser that was scuffed and beat up and just looked old. Actually, he got it for free—that’s how bad it was! But JR sanded it down, piece by piece, and he painted it, and he added new metal fixtures on the front, and it looks like new. He breathed new life into that dresser.

You can breathe new life into a building. It’s very common for an old, historic building to fall into disrepair. But someone with a vision buys the building and breathes new life into it. That means the person made renovations, cleaned it up, or repurposed it for another use.

Old movie theaters are great candidates for this. We used to have a lot of classic old theaters that had just a few screens. Today, people want the bigger cinema experience with a lot of movies to choose from and a lot of showtimes. So the older theaters have closed, but the buildings are still beautiful and can be adapted to other things. It’s common now to buy these old buildings and breathe new life into them and adapt them as something else.

A new park can breathe new life into a neighborhood; a bigger redevelopment can breathe new life into a whole city, if it’s big and exciting enough.

You can breathe new life into a brand. What’s a brand that just seems old and not really popular anymore? Here’s a perfect example: NordicTrack. The original at-home exercise machines were made by a brand called NordicTrak. For many years, they were the most popular at-home exercise equipment makers. I hadn’t heard the name NordicTrak in years; I thought it was gone.

But the current owners have tried to breathe new life into that brand by making it subscription-based and class-based, similar to what Peloton is doing. They’re trying to take something that’s old and not exciting and make it new and exciting again.

JR’s song of the week

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for the song of the week. JR has selected “You Are Enough” by the band Sleeping At Last. Before selecting today’s song, JR asked about the topic. So he selected this song specifically to go along with the Van Gogh exhibit topic. He likes listening to this song at night to relax right before going to sleep.

So thank you JR for this song of the week, “You Are Enough” by Sleeping At Last.

See you next time!

That’s all for today’s lesson. Next week, I’ll tell you all about my experience with JR at an immersive Van Gogh experience. I’ll have to go back and watch that episode of Emily in Paris. I watched season one a few weeks ago when I was sick one day; I watched the whole season from start to finish. But I was nodding off, so I might have missed that part.

Remember, we’re here every Monday and Thursday. And if you enjoy the audio version of the lessons, you might want to check out Plain English Plus+ . This is our membership program for those of you who want to upgrade your English with us. When you join, you’ll learn how to express more complex ideas and you’ll be able to build your confidence in English with exercises and by getting direct feedback from me. We also have live conversation calls several times a month, too. I have a feeling this might be a topic on a future live call. We’ll just have to watch our dashboards to see if this topic appears!

That’s it today…see you on Monday!