Flat-flooted

Flat-footed

The expression I’d like to share with you today is flat-footed. What does it mean to be caught flat-footed? It means you have not reacted quickly. Flat-footed. Let me illustrate this for you with an example from sports. When I was learning to play baseball as a kid, our coaches taught us to be ready by balancing our weight on the balls of our feet. That means, you bend your knees a little, you put your weight on the front part of your foot, with your heels up a little in the back. That way, if the ball is hit or thrown to you, you are ready to jump, move front to back, left to right: you’re ready to move your body to react because your body is ready to move. If, however, we were standing flat-footed, straight up, knees straight, and our weight flat on our feet, we would be slower to react. So in English, when you say someone is caught flat-footed, you mean that person was unable to react quickly.

That’s how it was in Greece, where the local government didn’t issue an evacuation order. There was a window of a couple of hours in which they could have ordered everyone to leave. But they didn’t recognize how bad the fire would get, and they missed their opportunity. They were caught flat-footed because they were not in a position to react quickly when they needed to.

Incidentally, you almost always say “caught flat-footed.” That’s the full phrase, caught flat-footed. You remember the story a few weeks ago, where the electric scooters started appearing in some American cities, and the governments had no idea what to do about it? Do they ignore it and let it happen, or do they need to pass rules about where the scooters can be left at night? Cities like San Francisco were caught flat-footed: something happened and they didn’t react in time. Now there are scooters strewn about their streets and parks. Do you remember Blackberries? Some of you might. Blackberry was the original smartphone and it was focused almost entirely on e-mail. Then Apple came out with its touch-screen iPhone. Blackberry was caught flat-footed: they were so into their world of email, they didn’t realize there was much more that could be done with a smartphone.

That’s all for today’s episode. JR and I thank you for being with us again this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us, maybe share some ideas for future episodes or expressions you’d like to learn about, I’ll give you our e-mail addresses. They are [email protected] and [email protected]. I know some of you might be a little shy about writing in English, so you can send JR a note in Spanish if you want. I mean, you can send us a note in any language you want, but if you want us to understand it, it has to be English or Spanish. But listen, there’s no reason to be embarrassed about writing in English—we’re all friends here, no judgments. But if you’re more comfortable writing in Spanish, that’s okay too. [email protected] and [email protected].

Thanks again for being with us. Don’t forget we’ll be back Monday. On Monday, we’ll talk about one isolated man in the Amazon forest who has been living without human contact for over 20 years. It’s an incredible story, so don’t miss it. See you Monday.