The English We Speak: Can't see the wood for the trees
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Tarkkaa harkittuihin hankintoihin. OP Tarkkaluotolla rahoitat pienet ja suuret elämänmenot. Tutustu op.fi kautta Tarkkaluotto. Luoton myöntää OP-vähittäisasiakkaat OYJ. Tulosyy, kovat kuukautiskivut. Etuhintainen gynekologi käynti alle 27-vuotiaille nuorille naisille nyt vain 99 euroa. Terveystalossa olet gynekologin hyvissä käsissä. Our podcast series Office English is back with weekly episodes to help you improve your English at work.
Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we explain expressions used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too. I'm Feifei and I'm joined by Georgie. How are you? I'm very well, thank you, Feifei. How are you? I'm very well, thank you, Georgie. So, what are we learning in this programme?
What does the idiom 'can't see the wood for the trees' mean?
Well, the other day I thought of quite an old idiom, can't see the wood for the trees. Now it's old, but it is still quite commonly used. If you can't see the wood for the trees, it means that you're so focused on the small details of something that you aren't looking at the situation as a whole and what's important. Oh.
Right, because wood in British English can mean something similar to forest. So, if you're standing in front of an individual tree, maybe looking at the details of the bark, you can't see the entire forest. You can't see the wood for the trees. Right, which is why in American English you might also hear can't see the forest for the trees. Yes.
Why don't we have an example, Georgie? How would we use it in the context of work? Okay, so imagine a team working on a document. They spend hours thinking about the font size, but the content of the document is unclear and the overall structure doesn't make sense. If you're obsessing over the font size, you're missing the bigger issue. The document itself isn't working.
Yes, the team can't see the wood for the trees. This idiom is often used gently to give advice rather than criticism. Shall we have some more examples? When I was writing my novel, I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I kept getting stuck on the same sentence, writing it over and over again.
I've been working on this project for so long. I can't see the wood for the trees at this point. I've forgotten why we're doing it in the first place. I think I need to get an outside perspective.
So, can't see the wood for the trees is about not being able to assess the whole situation, because you're too focused on small details. It's about losing perspective. Yes, and there's some other useful language to use in this context. If someone can't see the wood for the trees, they should take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is a phrase meaning the situation as a whole. Yes, they shouldn't get bogged down in the details. Now a bog is an area of wet, muddy ground. So if you get bogged down in the details, the details are slowing your progress. Those are all useful phrases to use. OK, let's recap. We learnt the idiom can't see the wood for the trees, which means you focus too much on smaller details that you forget to look at the whole situation. Join us again next time. Goodbye. Bye bye.
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