Silver lining
Today’s phrase is “silver lining.” You just heard it at the end of the episode, when I was talking about the British surfer who broke his back trying to surf a huge wave in Nazaré, Portugal. I said the silver lining is that he was presented with an award called Wipeout of the Year. A wipeout is a fall or a crash. So, the surfer broke his back—it hurts me just thinking about it—he broke his back in a huge crash, but at least he came home with an award for his efforts. The award is the silver lining.
When you want to say that there’s a little something good in an otherwise bad situation, you can say that little something good is the silver lining. Let me give you a couple of other examples. I was supposed to be on vacation this week, but I actually got assigned to do a project at work that I can’t miss, so I had to delay my vacation. But there is a silver lining: I get to go to a nice hotel to do the project. The bad situation is that I had to delay my vacation; the small good thing about it, the silver lining, is that I get to at least do this project in a pleasant location.
If you were one of the very early listeners to Plain English, you remember that I give up drinking alcohol every January, for the whole month. I don’t normally drink a lot, but I do like to have beer and wine every so often, so it’s hard to give up alcohol for the whole month. But here’s the silver lining: I save a lot of money from not buying drinks.
That’s all for today on Plain English. It’s time for me to get outside and enjoy the nice weather this week. Here in Chicago we went from winter straight to summer—we totally skipped spring. It literally went from snowing one week to being 80 degrees Fahrenheit the next. JR is stoked to be able to wear shorts and t-shirts outside. He’s from Mexico, so he’s really happy summer has arrived here in Chicago. All right—don’t forget the next episode is on Thursday. See you then.
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