Automotive English: An Ounce of Stitches?
| This is an entry in the “Automotive English” series. You can find more there.
You might want to also visit the first lesson on car vocabulary here. This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class. This entry includes a listening exercises. You can dowload the MP3 or play it using the button below. (MP3) |
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You probably know that the pound is a unit of weight in the U.S. (One pound is about 500g.) Do you know what a pound is? It’s one sixteenth (1/16) of a pound. It’s not very much, so to speak. And a ’stitch’ is a unit of sewing. (Sewing is putting cloth together with a needle and thread.) Each time you put a needle and thread through cloth, you make a stitch.
It’s clear that an “ounce of stitches” is rediculous. It refers to two idioms that I put together. Both of these idioms talk about the importance of doing maintenance on your car. . . or on anything else! We’ll be talking about these idioms today!
Before You Start the Recording
Problems do have a tendency to become bigger with time and fixing them while they’re small—or even before they happen—is a good idea. It’s also the topic of many English sayings. Are there any sayings in your language about this? How would you translate them into English? Do any of them involve weight? Or stitches?
Start the recording now.
After You’ve Started the Recording
Are these sayings anything like the sayings you have in your language about the same topic? How are they different? When will you use these sayings? What are similar sayings out of your language? How do they translate into English? I’d love to know!
August 1st, 2009 at 21:41
Dear Toby,
I want to greet and thank you for your so wonderful website. I don’t have a slight chance of using any of its material with my students, because they’re true beginners; but for me, its material is highly enriching.
Toby, there seems to be some problem with the link to the listening exercise of “Automotive English: An ounce of stitches?”. It simply doesn’t start. I tried to listen to it yesterday and today, but with no luck. I think it is a problem with this particular lesson only, because the others are working fine. I hope there is something you can do about it, because I’m really curious to hear what you have to say.
In Spanish (or at least, in Mexico), I think that the most common experession we use that conveys a similiar meaning to the ones your lesson is about, is “más vale prevenir que lamentar”, which literally would translate as “better to prevent than to lament”. We use it widely.
Again, thanks for your English lessons, and have a very nice weekend!
Beatriz Martinez
Mexico City