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  • Welcome to Get WHAT Ball Rolling?!... A resource for understanding American English Idioms

  • used in Academic Presentations. When you are standing in front of a crowd

  • of people who are waiting for your presentation to begin, how do you as the speaker begin

  • your presentation? “Let’s get the ball rollingis one

  • common expression used at the beginning of a presentation.

  • But there is no ball in the room! What ball are we talking about?

  • The intended meaning of the expression is begin the discussion or lecture. *Oftentimes,

  • this expression signals the lecture will begin with an activity or warm-up discussion. *This

  • activity will then lead to the main idea or purpose of the lecture. Let’s consider the

  • following example. In a lecture in biology class on microorganisms

  • in food production, the instructor might say the following:

  • Let’s get the ball rolling. Take a minute and write down your five favorite things to

  • eat or drink, then share your list with your neighbor. As we know, microorganisms are all

  • around us, everywhere we go. Did you know that we put microorganisms into our foods,

  • intentionally, to make things tastier and healthier?

  • As you heard, “let’s get the ball rolling was the first sentence spoken. Starting with

  • this phrase alerted the audience to this warm-up activity, which previews the main part of

  • the lecture. Other variations of this expression that you

  • may hear are: To get the ball rolling To get the ball rolling,

  • what is your personal definition ofIn order to get the ball rollingIn order

  • to get the ball rolling, ask the person sitting next to you what languages they speak. Let’s

  • get rollingWeve got a lot to cover today, so let’s get rolling.

  • All of these variations have the same meaning more or less.

  • Now, the next time you hearlet’s get the ball rolling”, you will know what it

  • means, and not think it’s time for a football game!

  • Thanks for watching, and have fun trying out these idioms!

Welcome to Get WHAT Ball Rolling?!... A resource for understanding American English Idioms

Subtitles and vocabulary

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