Hard pressed

Hard-pressed

“Hard-pressed” is an expression we use to indicate that someone would be challenged to do something.

Let’s start with some easy examples. We were talking about the difficulty of deciding what to put on the new euro paper currency. I said that Europe—the European Union—doesn’t have any E.U.-wide heavy hitters , famous names they could or should put on their money. Of course, individual countries have big, towering historical figures. I’m talking about E.U. figures.

Can you name any of the founding fathers of the European Union? If you live in Taiwan, that would be hard. If you live in Europe, that would probably also be hard. There’s only one name on there I had ever heard before—Winston Churchill—and he’s not famous for his work in the E.U.

Altiero Spinelli. Paul-Henri Spaak. Joseph Bech. I don’t mean to take anything away from their fine work. But these are not big, towering , famous names in the history of European politics. They, like most E.U. officials, worked more behind the scenes . They worked their magic in the halls of power in Brussels and national capitals, but not necessarily in the media spotlight like country leaders.

In fact, I think most European citizens would be hard-pressed to name the eleven founding fathers of the European Union. That means, I think most European citizens would have difficulty naming them. They would have difficulty doing it, so I said, they would be hard-pressed to do it.

Burning Man. Have you heard of that festival? It takes place in the desert in Nevada, a western state. It’s like music, art, drugs, parties, music, drugs, art, parties, drugs…anyway, it’s like nine days.

This town in Nevada got a year’s worth of rain in one night and the festival turned into a swamp of mud . Just disgusting . Cars were stuck. Tents were flooded. Mud was caked on everything. People were trying to get out, but they weren’t allowed to leave because authorities feared more cars getting stuck and blocking the way for emergency services.

Attendees were hard-pressed to communicate with friends and family, since there was little cell phone service in the area.

They were hard-pressed to communicate means, they had a difficult time communicating. The area doesn’t have good cell phone service; being isolated is the point of the festival. But when things started to go wrong, people wanted to change travel plans, communicate with the outside world . But they were hard pressed to do anything on their phones or computers because of the bad mobile service .

One more quick example: “we were hard pressed to finish the project on time because we got off to such a late start.” That means, “we had a hard time finishing the project on time.”

So that’s the easy way to use it. You directly say someone is having a hard time doing something. Now, though, I’m going to show you the much harder way to use it. You can use “hard-pressed” as a way to express your own opinion about something.

The way you do it is this: you say to your conversation partner, “You would be hard pressed to…” and then you express an opinion in the form of a superlative .

Let’s say I think the movie, “Walk the Line” is one of the best, if not the best , biopics of a country music singer. It’s about Johnny Cash. I think—this is my opinion—I think “Walk the Line” is the best biopic of a country singer .

Here’s how I’m going to express my opinion. I’m going to say, “You—my listener—you would be hard pressed to find a better biopic of a country singer than ‘Walk the Line.'”

So what I’m really saying is, “I think ‘Walk the Line’ is the best biopic of a country singer” but I’m phrasing it like, “It would be very difficult for you to find—or you would be hard pressed to find a better biopic than ‘Walk the Line.'”

Let’s try another example. “If you like mountain hikes , you would be hard pressed to find a better place to go hiking than the Grand Teton National Park.” This is my opinion. It really is! It’s my opinion. But I’m saying it like, “You would be hard-pressed to find a better place to go hiking.” Which means, “you would have difficulty finding a better place.” So that’s a more indirect , interesting way of describing my own opinion.

See you next time!

That’s all for us here today at Plain English. This was lesson number 611, so remember the full lesson is at PlainEnglish.com/611. And we also send a summary of each lesson by e-mail, along with other fun nuggets to help you feel connected to English. If you’re not getting our e-mails, just go to PlainEnglish.com/mail and sign up. They really are jam-packed with value and fun. PlainEnglish.com/mail.

Remember, we’ll be back on Monday to continue this topic. I’ll tell you about the seven themes the E.U. is considering for its paper currency. All I’m going to say now is, a couple of these are really strange. You’ll hear the whole story on Monday—see you then.