Name: Englis Tutor Nick P Idioms (273) Against the Clock
Uploaded: 2019-09-11T08:39:33.000Z
Duration: 2 min 18 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...

Hi this is Tutor Nick  P and this is Idioms 273. The idiom today is against the clock.

To-infinitive

Okay. Let's take a look the note here. If someone has to do something against the

clock,  he or she must do it in a hurried manner because a deadline is soon or

time is restricted. Time is limited. Okay.  Let's continue, The phrase is most often

heard with the verb race.So we often say we are racing against the clock.  But it

could also be used with some others such as speed. You could be speeding against the

clock. Hurrying against the clock. You know,  etc.  Okay. The origin of the phrase

is believed to have derived around the middle of the past century,  when time

limited sports became popular. You know,  like basketball or or any sport that's

on a clock. Then ... so a lot of times the players may,  maybe they had a race

against the clock to try to catch up before the end of the game. Or you know

to , to win to score the winning points. So let's take a look at several examples

here. So we have the first example about sports.

Number one. He said he had to race against the clock to make the

game-winning basket. So maybe it was a close score. Maybe that one basket made

the difference put the other team ahead.  So yes he had a race against the clock.

He was looking you know,  only several seconds were left. So he had to take a

shot and hopefully he made the basket.  All right number two.  I was just handed new

material and I had to race against the clock to review it you know , before

whatever it is that you were doing. Maybe you needed to give a speech or maybe you

had to discuss so talk about something.  But you didn't have a lot of time to

review this new material. You had to race against the clock.

Hey number three. We were trying to speed against the clock to meet the deadline.

So they're trying to hurry. So this is exactly how you use

it. Okay. Anyway I hope you got it. I  hope it is clear. Thank you for your time.