Name: Learn 10 ENGLISH IDIOMS from Entertainment
Uploaded: 2025-07-19T22:13:14.000Z
Duration: 11 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In today's video, we're going to look at 10 idioms from the world of entertainment.

Now, although these come from entertainment and they apply to entertainment situations, they also apply to other situations in everyday life.

So, we're going to look at the show must go on, to run the show, be in the limelight, 15 minutes of fame, and a showstopper, to start.

So, what does it mean the show must go on?

So, I know most of you probably know this expression from Queen's song, the show must go on.

I'm not going to sing it for you because I don't have a very nice voice, but basically that's what it means.

You have a ballet or you have a theatre play.

Let's say we're looking at a ballet, and the main dancer, you know, she's twirling around doing her dance, and suddenly she falls and breaks her leg.

Does this mean that the dance or the show is over and they stop it and they give everybody back their tickets, their money?

They take this dancer off, somebody else comes in her place or his place, and they continue dancing and get back on track till the end.

If an actor forgets his line or her line, the other actors, what they must do is they must improvise.

Meaning that they have to look at the situation, make new lines, make new words, get the story back on track of the play, and then continue till the end.

So, basically the show must go on means you can't stop.

If there's trouble, if there's problems, if something unexpected happens, it doesn't matter.

So, if you think about politics, if you think about a restaurant, okay?

Let's say in the restaurant, the chef is making some dishes, and there's been an accident, and everything goes up on fire.

Do they close the restaurant and tell all the guests to go home?

They put out the fire, they move things around, they improvise, and they get the guests their dishes, their food, they make everybody happy because the show must go on.

Politics, if a politician has an accident and can't come to vote, all the other politicians must continue anyway.

So, somebody has to manage, somebody has to be in charge of making sure that the show happens, the director.

But in any other situation, in business especially, we use this expression to show to be...

Somebody is in charge, somebody is in control.

So, for example, a lot of my staff are very angry and they don't want to do something I say.

So, I have to tell them, listen, I'm the one running the show, that's what I say, that's what you do, and that's what they do.

Now, in the old days of performances, there used to be, like, a big spotlight on the actors, or the singers, etc.

And I don't know exactly, but it used to come from some chemical, like, associated with actual lime.

That's how they made it very bright, and they put the light, you know, the big circle on the stage around the actor or the singer, and he or she is very lit up.

To be in the limelight means to be the center of attention, the center of focus, to have all eyes on you.

Doesn't actually have to have any light involved, but it just means that you're the center of attention and everybody's looking to see what you will do.

So, if you're in the news, for whatever reason, good or bad, means that you're in the limelight.

Everybody is looking to see what you're doing, what you're saying, etc.

Which is somewhat related to 15 minutes of fame.

Now, in the 1970s, there was a famous artist called Andy Warhol.

But he said that every person in the world will be famous for at least 15 minutes.

So now, we basically talk about somebody's 15 minutes of fame.

Today, you would think of it as something going viral.

You know this expression because it's from the internet.

If something goes viral, it means it becomes very widespread, very quickly, and whoever's in that video becomes very famous.

He was a British guy, I think, and he was talking about the situation with North and South Korea, and he was giving an interview to the BBC.

And during his interview, he had a home office.

His two-year-old daughter walks into the room and, you know, she's dancing and singing, having a good time.

And then his wife comes in and grabs the girl and takes her out, and the interview goes on because, you know, the show must go on.

And then, the next day, the whole world knows about this little interview, and the little girl, and they become famous, and they have more interviews.

And today, if you ask anybody about this situation, nobody remembers.

So, you know, that professor had his 15 minutes of fame, and now he's back to being just some professor in a university somewhere in the world.

If something is a showstopper, basically, it means it stops the show.

Because it is so amazing that the rest of the best part, it's the most amazing thing.

We can talk about this, about anything that we want to say is amazing or awesome.

So, like, you have a wedding, you know, everybody's sitting down, it's a beautiful church, it's a beautiful setup, flowers, everything.

And then, suddenly, the bride comes out, and she's just a showstopper.

She's just beautiful, and nobody notices anything else except for her.

And then, the wedding goes on, and things like that.

Okay, so now, we're going to look at five more, and we're going to look at steal the show, to steal the show, to steal someone's thunder, bring down the curtains, break a leg, and behind the scenes.

To steal the show means to basically grab all the attention, to take all the focus away from what's around the person or thing in question.

You have a play or you have a movie, and you have one actor whose performance is so good that it makes all the other actors, you know, seem not so good.

Even if they are good, they're not as good because this one person stole the show, took all the attention.

Now, in everyday life, let's say you're going to conference, and there's all kinds of experts giving speeches.

But there's one expert whose speech is so powerful, and so innovative, and so meaningful to so many people that this speaker has stolen the show and makes everybody else look, you know, mediocre, or average, or nothing special.

So, that's what it means to steal the show.

To steal someone's thunder is similar, but a little bit different.

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Learn 10 ENGLISH IDIOMS from Entertainment

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