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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Catchword, the Q-Lips vocabulary series where we teach you idioms, phrasal verbs, expressions, and more that will help build your English vocabulary and improve your English listening skills. Catchword is all about word power. And in today's lesson, we are going to teach you, and we is me and Indiana, by the way. I should say hello, Indiana. Hello, Indiana.
How's it going?
Hey, Andrew. I'm well. How are you doing today?
I'm good. And in today's episode, everyone, we're going to teach you two English idioms that we can use to describe moments of persistence and refusal to change one's mind. Persistence. Persistence means like keep going, keep going. So these two expressions, which are stick to your guns and
And double down, we use these idioms in these kinds of situations where we need to be persistent or when we refuse to change our minds. And sometimes they can be positive and sometimes they can be negative. We'll get into all of the details and explain them fully and give you some examples and teach you how to use them in your everyday speaking in just a moment.
But before we get started with the lesson, let me tell you about the study guide for this episode. In the study guide, you will find an interactive transcript plus detailed explanations and examples of some of the key vocabulary that you hear Indiana and me use in our conversation. Plus there's a quiz and some prompts that you can use for speaking and writing practice and much, much more.
Now to get the study guide, you do have to be a Q-Lips member. But you can sign up for an affordable price on our website, Qloops.com. And when you're a member, not only will you unlock the study guides for all of our over 1,000 episodes in our library, plus you'll also get to join our weekly speaking classes. You'll get our member-only series, The Fluency Files.
You'll get ad-free audio so you don't have to listen to announcements like this one. You can just skip ahead and get to the good stuff, get to the lesson right away and more. So guys, check out our website, QLips.com. You can sign up and become a member today and hit the next level with your English fluency with QLips. Okay.
And with that announcement out of the way, Indiana, let's get started with this lesson. So I'll let you do the honors, as always, and introduce the first key expression for this lesson, which is stick to your guns. Stick to your guns. Could you tell us what this means?
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Chapter 2: What idioms are introduced in this episode?
So first, let's start off with a visual to help remember this expression. Stick to your guns. So sticking to something is maybe staying close to or holding on to something. And of course, guns or weapons. So if you imagine somebody on the battlefield in a war, and they're fighting and it's getting a little dicey. The enemy is closing in, but they're deciding, all right, it doesn't matter.
I'm going to fight and I'm going to keep shooting, right? I'm going to stay with my guns. I'm not going to flee. I'm sticking to my guns. So that person would be possibly persistent, like you said, persevering, or maybe a little stubborn. And you can use this expression coming from that imagery.
This is an expression we use when we talk about somebody who's refusing to change their opinion, their plans, their decisions, especially in a difficult situation like here, in the example where this expression comes from. You're in a war, right? Your life is on the line, but you're still sticking with your decision to fight.
So if I stick to my guns, I'm staying with my decision about something, even if there's a lot of pressure on me.
Yeah. Excellent. Well said. So this word stick, the verb to stick, it's like something is sticky, right? Like a substance, maybe gum, you know, probably everybody has had the unfortunate experience of stepping on gum on the sidewalk and then it sticks to the bottom of your shoe, right? It's like when something is sticky and it's attached, that is this verb to stick.
So in the literal sense, the imagery that you described, Indiana, you could imagine a soldier, fighting a war and sticking to his guns, meaning that he's not quitting the fight, right? He's out there shooting his gun and in battle and not running away. So that's like the imagery behind this expression, but that's not what we mean when we use this expression in everyday conversation.
When we use it in everyday conversation with the idiomatic meaning, it just means to refuse to Changing your mind or changing your plan or decision. You've got your mind made up, which is another idiom that we use to mean that you've made your decision and you're not changing your mind. So we can also change this expression to fit the situation that we're talking about, right?
So if our subject is a woman, we could say she is sticking to her guns. Or if it's a man, he's sticking to his guns, etc., etc. We can change the pronoun for the situation that we're talking about. Now maybe we should talk about when we use it. What kind of situations would you use this expression in, Indiana? Stick to your guns.
I think you might say it about somebody when you're impressed with or surprised by their resilience and decision to stick with, go with their original decision or opinion. So let's say, I don't know. Somebody has decided they're going to switch careers suddenly, and they really want to move into a different job, start a different career, but it's going to be really hard for them.
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Chapter 3: How does 'stick to your guns' differ from 'double down'?
I'd be like, ah, good idea. Okay.
Yeah.
Let's go to example number two. And in this situation, we're going to hear a couple who is at a car dealership and they are discussing their car buying strategy before they talk to the salesperson. I know every country around the world is different, but in North America, when you go to the car dealership, it's often this like dance between the customer and the salespeople.
about the customer trying to negotiate a very low price and the salespeople trying to negotiate a high price. And it's not like you just walk into the dealership and you see the price tag and you pay that amount of money. There can be a lot of bargaining and negotiation at a car dealership. And a dealership is the name of the store where cars are sold.
There can be a lot of negotiation at a dealership in North America. So You need to have a good strategy before you go to the dealership so you can get a low price for your new car. And that's what the couple is talking about in this example. So again, let's eavesdrop in and listen to what they have to say. Here we go.
The salesperson is definitely going to try and sell us the upgraded model with the leather seats.
Yeah, I know. They always do. But we agreed our absolute maximum budget is $20,000, okay? Don't forget that.
Exactly. I'm with you. We have to stick to our guns. If he tries to push us over $20,000, we just gotta walk away.
Exactly.
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Chapter 4: In what situations might you use 'stick to your guns'?
The employees pushed back, but the CEO still said, no way, we're doing it my way. That's doubling downs. So yeah, those are the two opposite expressions that we can use for those different situations. And yeah, Indiana, interestingly enough, they both come from gambling. A lot of gambling expressions in English.
There's so many expressions in English coming from sports, like particularly baseball. And yeah, it seems like gambling is a big one too. So it's a good resource for idioms as being interested in sports and gambling.
All right. So everyone, let's wrap up this lesson here. Just before we let you go, we should review and compare these two expressions. So they are both similar. Stick to your guns and double down in the fact that they describe a refusal to change your mind, a refusal to back down or a refusal to retreat. And we usually use them both in situations where there's some
or some friction or maybe a problem to overcome. However, they are different in that sticking to your guns is about holding your ground and not giving up and defending your current mindset or your current opinion. However, doubling down is more like when you stubbornly refuse to admit a mistake or you stubbornly refuse to change your mind. And often this will make a bad situation even worse.
So if you just keep those similarities and differences in mind, That will be helpful, I think. And of course, really the best way to make sure that you can use and understand these expressions correctly in the future is by doing a lot of English listening. These are really common idioms. And if you listen to a lot of English, if you watch
tv shows and youtube videos and listen to podcasts and read books you are going to hear these expressions undoubtedly in the future and by hearing them again and again and again in different contexts and different situations that will help you to understand them fully and to be able to understand them when you hear them and then eventually to be able to use them naturally in your english speaking as well
So as always, spend time with English and the good results will follow. Okay, Indiana, thank you for helping me co-host this lesson here today.
Absolutely, Andrew. It was fun to talk about these expressions.
And speaking about talking about these expressions, guys, you can head on over to our Discord community where we'll be continuing the conversation about this lesson. And if you want to make some example sentences using these expressions, that would be a great way to do it. Plus, we'll be having a speaking class about this lesson as well.
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