From scratch
Today we’re going to talk about what it means to do something “from scratch.” When you do something from scratch, you start with nothing already done for you.
You can say you do something from scratch, make something from scratch, or build something from scratch. And in all those cases, nothing is already done for you. Instead, you have to use the basic tools and ingredients to do all the assembly and building yourself.
Let’s start with how you heard it in today’s lesson. Egypt is building a new capital city from scratch. They are building it in the desert. There was no city there before. No sewers, no roads, no parks, no trees, no nothing. They started with nothing already done. They’re not expanding Cairo in a new direction. They’re not converting an existing city into the capital. Nope, they are starting from scratch. They started with a big piece of empty desert.
London and Istanbul are both big travel hubs in Europe. If London wants to continue being a gateway to Europe, then it needs more airport capacity. The government keeps going back and forth on options, but they’re considering building another runway at Heathrow Airport and expanding capacity at the region’s other airports.
Istanbul did it differently. Turkey built a massive new airport from scratch; it opened in 2019. What was there before? A lot of the land that is now the gleaming new airport was once government-owned forest. They truly built that airport from scratch: they didn’t start with anything already built.
So that’s buildings. Another way to use “from scratch” is to talk about meals. I love pasta and meatballs; it’s great comfort food. But I have a confession to make, and when I prepare pasta and meatballs, I don’t make it from scratch. I get the pasta pre-made and—I’m almost embarrassed to confess this since we have so many listeners in Italy—but I usually just pour the marinara sauce out of a jar.
What would I have to do to make pasta and meatballs from scratch? For the pasta, I’d have to buy the flour, eggs, olive oil, and salt; then I’d have to combine them into a dough; and finally, I’d form the pasta somehow. For the sauce, I’d need to start with the tomatoes, oil, and spices, and cook it. And for the meatballs, I’d have to start with ground beef and add maybe some ricotta cheese and dried-up old breadcrumbs. Making a meal from scratch is a lot of effort!
A lot of you work with spreadsheets; maybe you make financial models like I sometimes do. One great way to save time when you need to make a spreadsheet is to start with an example or a template. That way, you don’t have to start from scratch.
But there are some tasks that you need to start from scratch, either because the old models are too messy or because you’re doing something new. If you start a spreadsheet from scratch, you press Control + N and start with that cursor on A1. You write your own formulas, do your own formatting, nothing from a template… not if you’re building a spreadsheet or a model from scratch.
So, what this means is that when you do something from scratch, you start without any of the work already done. However, we have to be reasonable when we use “from scratch.” We can use our judgment here. For example, if I want to make meatballs from scratch, I don’t have to slaughter the cow myself. I can buy ground beef. But I can’t buy meatballs that have been pre-made at the grocery store. If I want to make a spreadsheet from scratch, I don’t have to build a new computer with my own two hands. I can start with a blank Excel workbook, and it’s still “from scratch.”
JR’s song of the week
It’s time for JR’s song of the week. It’s called “Meet Me At Our Spot” by The Anxiety, Tyler Cole, and Willow. The lyrics describe younger people suffering from insomnia and anxiety, and the two people have a spot they can meet up to comfort each other. I’m not sure if they’re romantic or not; it’s not totally clear. But that’s a great song and really popular on YouTube. I think they’re on tour, too. So, thanks, JR, for that song.
See you next time!
And that’s all for today’s lesson. Remember, if you are in Mexico and you’d like to say hi while I’m in Mexico City, just go to PlainEnglish.com/meet, fill out the form, and I’ll be in touch about a way for us to connect during the month of February 2022.
We’ll be back on Monday as always with a new lesson.
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
