'Kicking Off' a New Year - January 02, 2025

معنی واژه با لمس

1. 0:01And
2. 0:09now, words and their stories from VOA Learning English.
3. 0:19One of the most popular sports in the United States is American football.
4. 0:26In the US, football is a sport that involves a lot of contact.
5. 0:33What people around the world call football, Americans call soccer.
6. 0:39For today's show, we talk about some idioms and expressions that come from American football.
7. 0:49The American sport mainly involves carrying or throwing the ball.
8. 0:55But there are times when a player must use their feet to kick the ball.
9. 1:02The kicker can kick field goals to get points.
10. 1:05In addition to that, the game starts with a kickoff,
11. 1:11and after scoring points, a team will kick off to the other side, beginning their turn on offense.
12. 1:22The term kickoff is commonly used to describe the start of an event or project.
13. 1:30For example, we could say experts from all over the world attended the kickoff
14. 1:37of the New Language Museum.
15. 1:40You can use it as a phrasal verb as well.
16. 1:45For example, people often like to kick off the new year with a resolution or promise to yourself,
17. 1:54to reach a goal or to do something.
18. 1:59Football also has the term punt.
19. 2:02Punting is another sort of kick a team uses when they cannot score.
20. 2:10The punter kicks a ball with the top of his foot.
21. 2:14Punt, like kick, can be both a noun and a verb.
22. 2:18verb. When you punt the ball, you put it in play for the other team.
23. 2:25The same can be said for punting in life.
24. 2:30When we punt something, we give our task, job, or responsibility to someone else.
25. 2:38For example, if I'm not good at a certain task, or I just don't want to do it,
26. 2:45I can punt it to someone else.
27. 2:49It can also mean to delay a decision.
28. 2:53If I'm not sure about taking a trip, for example, I can punt the decision until later.
29. 3:01Another way to say this in American English is to table it.
30. 3:07If you are not ready to think about something, it can or must wait until later.
31. 3:14In football, the kicker not only starts the game with a kickoff, but also kicks field goals.
32. 3:23To do this, the kicker must kick the football between the goal posts at either end of the football field.
33. 3:32If he succeeds, his team gets three points.
34. 3:37Kicking a field goal can be difficult if the kicker is far from the goalposts,
35. 3:44or if the weather in an outdoor stadium is windy, rainy, or snowy.
36. 3:52But imagine if the goalposts were moving.
37. 3:56That would make kicking the ball between them much more difficult.
38. 4:02We can face this problem in everyday life.
39. 4:06Imagine if you are given a task at work with specific goals to reach.
40. 4:12For example, if you are a social media manager,
41. 4:16you could be asked to increase followers by 10 ,000 by the end of the month.
42. 4:24But when the end of the month comes, your boss tells you that now you need to add 20 ,000 followers,
43. 4:32not 10 ,000.
44. 4:35In this case, your boss has moved the goal post.
45. 4:40Sometimes a person moves the goal posts on purpose.
46. 4:45They have a reason for doing so.
47. 4:48If the goalposts keep moving, it is difficult or even impossible to reach the goal.
48. 4:58So if you say that someone has moved the goalposts,
49. 5:02you are accusing them of changing the rules or end goals to make it difficult for you to succeed.
50. 5:11We can also say to move the target to mean the same thing.
51. 5:16A moving target is a changing goal or result.
52. 5:22A desired goal, end, or objective that changes all the time is difficult or perhaps even impossible
53. 5:31to reach. Both expressions,
54. 5:35to move the goalposts and to move the target, can be used in the same way and in similar situations.
55. 5:44However, moving the goalposts is a classic football expression,
56. 5:49while moving the target can refer to several sports.
57. 5:56And that's words and their stories.
58. 5:58Until next time, I'm Anna Matteo.