Hi, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre mais expressões em inglês com o verbo lose, como “não vou esquentar a cabeça com isso” e “fulano não sabe perder”.

Transcrição

Hey, everybody. How have you guys been? Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.

Today we’re tackling a couple more expressions with lose. When someone tells you to not worry about something they may say Don’t lose any sleep over it. That’s easy to understand, right? Don’t lose any sleep over it. Example: your wife tells you that your kid Timmy has been getting in trouble in school and today he came home with a note. His teacher, Ms. Johnson, says Timmy pulled Mary’s hair and Mary started to cry. Your wife is kinda worried about it, but you tell her “This isn’t a big deal. Remember a while back when Mary pushed Timmy and Ms. Johnson called us? Even we didn’t think it was a big deal. I think Ms. Johnson is overreacting again and, frankly, I’m not gonna lose any sleep over this. Unless Mary’s parents give us a call… then it’s a different story.”

So what did you just say? You just told your wife not to worry. You just told her you were not going to lose any sleep over it. This is a very common and useful idiomatic expression when you want to express that you don’t think something is that big of a deal, when you don’t think something is that serious. You may say “Hey, this isn’t a big deal and I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”. And you will also notice that you frequently hear people say this in the negative form, to communicate they aren’t gonna worry much about something. It’s not that common to hear people say “Oh, I’m gonna lose sleep over this problem”, but you might hear someone say “I might lose some sleep over this” or “This is gonna make me lose some sleep”.

So if someone tells you “They said schools are raising tuitions again next year”… You hear that and figure there’s a lot that can happen before the end of the year. So you tell your friend “Hmm… we’ll see. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over that.” Another friend says “I’ve heard it on the news that the so-called potable water we drink is actually full of nasty bacteria”. You look at your friend and say “Yeah, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that. We’ve been drinking this water for a long time and… we’re fine.” And yet another friend says “Some South-American civilization predicted the world would end in 2012”. You ask your friend “Did they give the exact date?”. Your friend doesn’t know, so you say “I’m not losing any sleep over that. With any luck, if that really happens I’ll be asleep and won’t even know the world has ended”.

So can you think of anything someone’s told you recently, and they thought you would be super worried about it, and your reaction was more along the lines of “I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it”?

And here’s another thing people say a lot: someone is a ‘sore loser’ when they have lost… some kind of competition, let’s say, and they keep saying that it wasn’t fair, and that they should have won, and that the person who won did something wrong… Some people call that “whining”.