Cut through
Today’s English expression is “cut through.” You go directly through something, when the alternative is to go around it.
In today’s lesson about wildlife crossings , I described U.S. Highway 101. I said that the highway cuts through the Santa Monica mountains. If you look at a map, you can see what I mean. There are two ways around this mountain range: along the coast, or in the interior of California. In fact, there are two roads that do just that. California Highway 1 goes along the coast, while Interstate 5 goes around the mountains to the interior. Not Highway 101. Highway 101 cuts through the mountains. It goes directly through the mountains, when the alternative was to go around them.
It’s more common for us to use this when we describe the route we’re personally taking to get from one place to another. In many cities, we have major highways that go around the city center. Right around the time you listen to this, I’ll be driving to Pittsburgh for the weekend. On my way to Pittsburgh, I’ll pass through the city of Indianapolis. As I approach Indianapolis, I’ll have the choice to take the ring road around the city, or cut through the city on I-70. That will be my choice: I-70 is a shorter route, but there might be more traffic because it cuts through the city. I-70 cuts through the city because it goes directly through the city, when the alternative is to go around it.
Cut through is something we used to do a lot as kids. I grew up in a small town and for three years, I lived about a mile away from my school. This was before high school, so I was, say 11 to 13 years old when I went to this school. And in my town, it wasn’t common to walk to school; the houses were just too far away. We had school buses to take us to school. But this school was only about a mile away, so I’d walk, often with my neighbor, to and from school when the weather was nice.
And along the way was a large field, just an empty expanse of land. If we walked along the road, we’d follow the field along one side, then turn 90 degrees left, and follow the field along the other side. But this was just an empty field; there were no crops growing. So we often just cut through the field. We were good at math; we knew the diagonal of a right triangle is less than the sum of the other two sides. We just cut through the field—we went directly through something.
In my town, there were a lot of winding roads and oddly-shaped parcels and such; it wasn’t the cookie-cutter suburb that you sometimes see. So when you wanted to get from one house to another, it was often easier to just cut through someone’s yard. Instead of taking the road, you just cut through someone’s yard—you just walk through the yard. And believe me, we learned quickly which neighbors let us cut through their yard, and which didn’t.
JR’s song of the week
Today’s song of the week is “The Mighty Quinn” by Manfred Mann. The song is about an Eskimo named Quinn, who changes despair into joy and chaos into rest. It was written by Bob Dylan; if you’re looking for deeper meaning, he’ll leave you disappointed. He said it was a simple nursery rhyme. But the song became a hit, both the Bob Dylan version and the Manfred Mann version.
I didn’t recognize the song when I saw JR’s selection, but as soon as I played it, I realized I knew it. See the same happens to you. “The Mighty Quinn” by Manfred Mann.
By the way, if you’re curious about what these songs sound like, we send a link to the song in Spotify to all free members of PlainEnglish.com. JR sends a lesson summary every Monday and Thursday, and the Thursday summary includes a link to the song in Spotify. So if you get those emails, watch for that link in today’s email. If you don’t get the emails, then go to PlainEnglish.com and join as a free member—it’s really easy to do, and it opens up a host of other benefits, too.
See you next time!
Have you seen the Netflix documentary, “The Tinder Swindler”? It was the number-one movie on Netflix for a short time. It’s about a guy who scams women out of tens of thousands of dollars each. And he does it all over Europe.
But I’m guessing that nobody in this audience fell victim to the Tinder Swindler because you listened to Lesson 375 , which was all about scams on dating apps . Listen to that one at PlainEnglish.com/375 if you missed it. This is just more proof that you should stay with us if you want to learn about the most important things going on in the world, and pick up a little English too, while you’re at it.
That’s all for today’s lesson. We’ll be back next week with another one on Monday. See you then.
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
