Finger on the pulse
Okay, today I want to tell you what it means to have your finger on the pulse of something. Earlier, you heard that Emmanuel Macron did not have his finger on the pulse of the French middle class. You could probably tell from the context that he didn’t know what people were thinking, what was going on in their lives. That is true, and your pulse is like your heartbeat. And when you want to measure the heartbeat of a person, you can press your finger or two fingers on that person’s wrist, right on the inside of a person’s wrist you can feel his or her heartbeat, or pulse.
When you have your finger on the pulse of something, it means you are very familiar with everything that’s going on, right up to the latest minute. When Macron was campaigning, he certainly had his finger on the pulse of public opinion: he won a big victory. But he didn’t really have his finger on the pulse of the French middle class, the people in the countryside, lately. What kinds of people have their finger on the pulse of public opinion? I would think anyone who conducts opinion polls has their finger on the pulse of what’s going on around a given country or state.
Journalists usually have a specialty, right? It’s called their beat, in English. They might cover business, science, the environment, local politics, crime, whatever. A good journalist has her finger on the pulse of her beat, her specialty. She has to know everything about what’s going on. Business leaders, too. One thing that’s popular these days is fast-fashion. Chains like H&M have their finger on the pulse of what people want, and they can bring new items to their stores much faster than traditional retailers can. That’s why stores like Zara, Topshop, and H&M are called fast-fashion. They have their finger on the pulse of their customers, and as soon as a new trend emerges, they can have that trend on the shelves, on the racks, really quickly.
The coach of a sports team has to have his finger on the pulse of the team. What are they thinking? How can we come together and train as hard as possible to win the next game? A teacher should have his or her finger on the pulse of the classroom. You want to know your students’ mindsets, so they learn the most possible.
That’s it for today’s Plain English. I hope you learned something. Don’t forget to join our e-mail list by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail. If you join the list, you’ll get email updates from JR and me. We’ll send you links to English articles on the main topics of every episode. And you’ll also get one additional word or phrase explained in plain English. That’s twice a week, so over the course of a year, you’ll get an additional 104 words and phrases. Totally free, right to your email inbox, by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail. JR and I will be back on Monday; have a great weekend!
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