Clear out

Clear out

Today’s expression is to clear out. To clear out is to make an area clean, neat, orderly; free of unwanted things. Imagine this conversation:

What are you doing this weekend?

Well, I have to clear out the garage.

Clear out the garage? What do you have to do that for?

Well, believe it or not, we want some space to park our car in the garage.

To clear out the garage: move all the junk out of there so you can fit your car. Clear out the basement—depending on where you live, houses may or may not have basements, but if you have a basement, there’s probably some stuff down there you should clear out one of these days. Clear out your desk! Let’s hope you don’t hear that at work: that means you should get all your stuff and go home—usually forever.

How did you hear it in the episode? If you said that they cleared out an orphanage to build the world’s most expensive house, then you remembered correctly. There was an extended battle over whether this home was legally built on the land where it sits. There was an orphanage dating back to 1895 on that parcel. The new owners and the orphanage came to an agreement, and the new owners did pay for the land. But there was—and is—some question about whether the sale was legal or not. Regardless, the symbolism really upset a lot of people in Mumbai. They cleared out an orphanage to build the world’s most expensive residence.

What else can you clear out? Clear out your closets. Marie Kondo, right? Clear out your closets, get rid of the stuff that doesn’t give you joy, and keep it nice and clean from now on. Go back to Episode 136 if you’d like to hear more about Marie Kondo. That was a popular episode. Clear out your drawers; clear out your closets.

You can use “clear out” to refer to yourself. We need to clear out of here, means, we need to leave.

Quote of the week

Today’s quote of the week is from the movie, “The Lunchbox.” The plot of the movie is that the dabawalas mix up one man’s lunchbox, and he winds up corresponding with a stranger. The quote I have for you today is this, spoken by the character Shaikh, “Sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.” I like that quote because it reminds us that, even if we take the wrong path in life, or if we make a mistake, or don’t make the right choice, we can still wind up in a good place. “Sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.” I like that a lot.

“The Lunchbox” is a great movie. I highly recommend it to anyone; it’s a great story and the scenery from Mumbai is cool too. It’s not on Netflix anymore, but you can stream it on Amazon. By the way, do you guys find that Netflix doesn’t have any of the movies you want to see anymore? All they seem to have are Netflix originals—some of which are fine, but the movies I’ve wanted to see lately were, Apollo 11, Bohemian Rhapsody, and The Mule, and none of them was on Netflix. I’m sure it’s been a gradual shift, but there are literally no movies I want to see on Netflix anymore. I like their series—I just finished the first season of Cable Girls and they have some great original series and Spanish-language shows. I’m looking forward to the final season of Orange Is The New Black and the next season of The Crown, but the movies…I’m just not feeling it anymore for movies.

That’s the end of my rant, and the end of today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I know you like the travel ones; several of you have asked for Chicago, so we’ll see about doing that one sometime soon. Remember to sign up for additional episode resources at PlainEnglish.com/mail .

We’ll be back here for our next episode on Thursday. See you then!