Gathering steam

To "gather steam" is to grow in momentum, speed or progress

Explore more: Lesson #69
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Gathering steam

So did you hear “gathering steam” when it first appeared? I hope you were paying attention. When something is gathering steam, it is increasing in force or speed. Here’s how you initially heard it in the very first sentence of the main part of the program: The movement to reduce our use of plastic straws is gathering steam. The movement is like the coordinated effort. And the movement is gathering steam because more and more people are starting to become aware of the damage plastic straws do to the environment. The movement first started with just scientists and environmental activists, but now many celebrities, corporations, and individuals all support this movement. So, you can say the movement is gathering steam, because it is becoming more and more popular every day.

Let’s see if we can think of some other things that are gathering steam in the world today. Artificial intelligence is a big thing in the business world: using computers to not only do repeatable tasks, but to learn from their mistakes and get better all on their own. AI is a big deal in business these days and you would definitely say that artificial intelligence is gathering steam. Just a few years ago it felt like science fiction to talk about AI, but now it’s top of mind for a lot of big companies. So, artificial intelligence has been gathering steam these last few years.

I did a quick Google search for gather steam and here are a few examples I found. There’s a movement in Canada to buy Canadian products instead of American products, as retaliation against some of the things the American president has been saying and doing of late. That movement, at least according to the article, is gathering steam in Canada; it’s becoming more and more popular with consumers.

There is also a movement in parts of Europe to oppose so-called “mass tourism”. Cities like Barcelona are finding that having so many tourists makes it hard for locals to find affordable apartments and leads to overcrowding of its beaches and cultural sites. This effort to reduce “mass tourism” is gathering steam in some cities in Europe. It’s becoming more and more popular.


That’s it for today. We are going back to our old schedule starting next week, where we will publish an episode every Monday and every Thursday. It’s been fun doing three a week, but as JR can also attest, it has been a lot more work for both of us. We had to write, produce and publish the Monday episode all in one day, so that cut down on some of the flexibility we had in our Sundays. Now we’re back to our more leisurely pace of two a week, which we can take our time producing over the weekend and into the week. But from my perspective, these extra episodes have been worth it and I hope you enjoyed hearing about the World Cup as much as we enjoyed making the episodes about it.

The next episode will be on Monday and we’ll talk about robots in the kitchen. I’ll leave that to your imagination until the episode comes out. Monday morning US time that one becomes available—don’t miss it.

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Story: Starbucks eliminates straws