Hi, everyone. How’s it going?

Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre duas expressões que usam partes do corpo, mais uma palavra bônus! (nada a ver com corpo, mas super comum e interessante).

Transcrição

Hello, everyone. How’s it going? 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 talk about two expressions containing body parts. Yeah, body parts, like nose, arm, leg, foot and back.  These are all very common terms, so you may have heard them before and if you were not very clear on what they meant, this podcast is for you. And actually there are tons of expressions in English that include a body part, so I may come back to this topic in a future podcast, but today we’re kicking things off with two of them.

So here’s the first one: pay through the nose. Can you imagine what that means… pay through the nose for something? That means you’re paying a lot of money for whatever it is you’re buying or renting. Let me give you a few examples. Let’s say you want to have some kind of plastic surgery done on you, and your friend Mary recommends a plastic surgeon she knows. She says “He’s really capable, very skilled, and not very expensive”. When you hear that, you’re like… hmm, he’s very skilled but not very expensive? You’ve always thought that plastic surgery was something that would cost anyone a lot of money, so now you tell your friend Mary that you’re gonna do it with another surgeon, who charges twice as much. Mary says “You’re insane. You’re gonna pay through the nose for that doctor’s work. Are you sure it’s worth it?”

So what Mary is saying is that you’re gonna pay through the nose if you decide to have plastic surgery done by the other surgeon. Paying through the nose means that you’re probably paying way more than necessary for something. That is exactly what Mary thinks. The surgeon she knows is very skilled, in her opinion, and he would charge half as much as the other guy. Here’s another example: you wanna buy an imported car. Your friend Gary thinks you’re crazy. He says “You’re crazy. Do you know how hard it is to find a good mechanic for this car? You’re gonna pay through the nose for simple maintenance jobs and tune-ups. I think you should definitely go with a US car; it’s gonna be way cheaper in the long run, and just as good as the imported car”. So Gary is saying that if you buy that imported car, it is gonna cost you a lot of money in the long run, way more than you would have to spend if you just bought a US car. He’s saying that you’re going to pay through the nose for maintenance of that imported car… Maybe when you need to replace parts, those parts will be imported too.

And here’s a similar expression, with different body parts: this time, we have ‘arm’ and ‘leg’. Going back to the plastic surgery example, Mary thinks that if you choose to have surgery with some other doctor, instead of the one she recommended, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg. You’re gonna have to pay through for surgery; or you can say that the surgery is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Same thing with the imported car: your friend Gary thinks that maintenance of an imported car plus other associated expenses are gonna cost you...