고정관념에서 벗어나다 Get Out of the Box, 곤경에 빠진 In a Bind
Power Warm-up: We have another kilometers to go What now?
Jeff and Amanda are 200 kilometers away from their destination. The next bus isn’t for eight hours and there are no more trains. They’re going to have to think outside the box.
Kristen: So, how’s going Cam?
Cameron: It’s going well.
Kristen: Really? Why are you laughing?
Cameron: So. This is a little embarrassing. You know how I haven’t been in my house for too long. And I’m slowly getting the things.
Kristen: In your new house, yes.
Cameron: Furniture, stuff like that. So I’m trying to get carpet.
Kristen: Carpet?
Cameron: Rugs. Because I have a dog and he can’t have like slippery floors right? So you know how with the big delivery app that we use here in Korea, there are free returns.
Kristen: Yes.
Cameron: I have been ordering so many rugs.
Kristen: And returning them. Oh, my goodness, Cam.
Cameron: So, I’ve, so there’s just one spot in my room, one spot in my house. I can’t find like the perfect like rug for it. There needs to be something there, but I just can’t find it. Either the design’s good, but the quality’s bad. Or the quality’s good, but the design’s bad. Cause we can only see it on the internet. And so, you don’t know until you see the real thing. I’ve sent back like 15 rugs for this one spot in my house. I, like, my neighbor must think I’m this crazy person.
Kristen: 15? Oh my. That delivery person is probably hating you.
Cameron: Oh, yeah. I don’t know.
Cameron: Like I know the company like the app or whatever probably isn’t making money I don’t know how the payment changes for the delivery people.
Kristen: Yeah.
Cameron: Well, I’m sure–
Kristen: I hope they’re not affected.
Cameron: I don’t know. I just lately I just have this big pile of 반품. Like these packages. Oh, my gosh. That’s my life right now.
Kristen: Oh, dear. Wait a second, did you find it, So, finally, did you get one?
Cameron: Oh, I did, but it wasn’t even a delivery. I found it in a store.
Kristen: The things that happen in Cameron’s home.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: Okay, so thank you for sharing that. I’m glad you have your rug.
Power Expressions
Okay, so Travel Tuesday, we have another 200 kilometers to go. What now? What is what now? What is what now? I like this.
Cameron: Yeah, what now means what do we do now? Or what is there to do now?
Kristen: Right. Okay. Think outside the box is our first expression.
Cameron: This means that you’re going to be a little creative. You aren’t going to think in the normal way. You’re going to think in a different creative way.
Kristen: That’s right and if you are in a bind, BIND.
Cameron: You’re in a difficult situation and it’s like, oh, I don’t have any choices. I want to do this, but I can’t. I’m stuck.
Kristen: You’re stuck. You’re stuck. Okay, and how about worth a try?
Cameron: It could fail. You could not do well, but hey, just try it. It’s not going to hurt to try. All right. Because you could succeed.
Kristen: All right. Very good. Worth a try. Why not? All right. Those are the expressions that we’re going to cover. Let’s go ahead and listen to our dialogue.
Power Dialog
Jeff: Okay, now that we’re in Danbury, we still have another 200 kilometers to go. What now?
Amanda: Since there are no rental cars and the next bus leaves in eight hours, we have to think outside the box.
Jeff: Why don’t we go into that little diner over there and talk to some locals and tell them we’re in a bind?
Amanda: It’s worth a try. The worst they can say is wait for the bus.
Jeff: But then we’ll miss the wedding.
Amanda: We’ll never know unless we ask. Anyway, I’m really hungry.
Kristen: Jeff begins the dialogue by saying, okay, now that we’re in Danbury, we still have another 200 kilometers to go. What now? Okay. So our power pattern today is now that. And this is a great way to start your sentence.
Cameron: Yes.
Kristen: Now that we’re here or now that we did something, what does this mean, now that?
Cameron: So we often use this phrase when you’ve reached a stage and now everything’s completed. So, you’re looking for the next thing to do or you’ve reached a stage and you’re like, what is the thing that we have to do now? So now that we’re in Danbury, so their goal up until that point was to get to Danbury. So then it’s, do we have anything to do? Is it over?
Kristen: Right.
Cameron: Do we go into the next thing? Do we change completely? Here, though, with the rest of the sentence, he’s saying we still have 200 kilometers to go. So, we’ve reached this point. This is a good goal. Okay. But we still have 200 more to go. Now that we’ve reached Danbury.
Kristen: Right. So, it’s a kind of you’re arriving at a certain time period and then you figure out what you’re going to do next. So now that we’re here, let’s go, you know, you know, check in the hotel and get some dinner. You’ve been wanting to get here. And now that you’re here, then you’re about to do something else.
Cameron: So I think a good way to explain this is maybe think of the stages in life and how you, we often have an age with them. So now that you’re 18, you can vote. Now that you have graduated college, what job are you going to get? Yeah.
Kristen: You can leave the house.
Cameron: It’s like you’ve reached a goal and now the situation changes. Right. You can either do something now. Or now you can’t do something. But the conditions have changed now that you’ve reached that point.
Kristen: I mean these two words mean a lot. I mean it’s very useful okay and what does Amanda say.
Cameron: Since there are no rental cars and the next bus leaves in eight hours, we have to think outside the box.
Kristen: No rental cars, the next bus, eight hours. Remember, they’re trying to get to the connecting flight.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: Right? And they have all this time Yeah, that’s right. So you have to think outside the box. This is a very popular expression, very specific in meaning. What does this mean?
Cameron: This means to think differently, to think creatively. So you cannot think the normal way. The box is the normal way. And you’re going outside of the box.
Kristen: So if you think outside the box, you have a creative idea, you have a unique idea, a new idea. Those ideas are, is basically what happens when you think outside the box. Okay, Jeff says, why don’t we go into that little diner over there and talk to some locals and tell them we’re in a bind? Okay, so Jeff is making a suggestion. Diner. Let’s go into that diner. D-I-N-E-R is like a what? Little coffee shop?
Cameron: Yes, a coffee shop.
Kristen: But we’re not talking about the coffee shop like cafe. We’re talking, it’s a little bit different ’cause they have food there too.
Cameron: Yeah, you’ll have like hamburgers and hash browns and French fries.
Kristen: Yeah, breakfast.
Cameron: Yeah, I feel diners are a great place for American style breakfast.
Kristen: Yes.
Cameron: Pancakes, waffles.
Kristen: Sunday breakfast at diners? Okay, so why don’t we go and talk to some locals?
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: Okay, L-O-C-A-L-S.
Cameron: Yeah, it’s the 현지인. It’s the people that live there.
Kristen: That’s right. And we want to tell them that we’re in a bind. This is a great expression, B-I-N-D. If you’re in a bind…
Cameron: You’re in a difficult place. You can’t really do the things you’re wanting to do. So they’re in Danbury, like we’ve talked about, but there are no rental cars and there’s not a bus for eight hours. So they can’t do anything. They’re in a bind. Mm-hmm.
Kristen: So there is a difference, everyone, of we’re in trouble. We’ve got a problem. Whereas that, you can resolve the problem. You can find a way to get out of the trouble. But when you’re in a bind, you’re in trouble or you have a difficult situation and you can’t really do anything. A little bit.
Cameron: Right. This bind literally means to tie. So it’s like you are tied up..
Kristen: Tied up.
Cameron: You can’t really move.
Kristen: That’s it. That’s right. Okay. What does Amanda say?
Cameron: It’s worth a try. The worst they can say is wait for the bus.
Kristen: Okay. So, Jeff makes this suggestion. Why don’t we go in there and talk to the locals? And Amanda says it’s worth a try. So she’s open to the idea. What is worth a try?
Cameron: It’s worth a try here means it might work. Yeah, it might turn out okay.
Kristen: Uh-huh.
Cameron: It could even feel like saying, Why not?
Kristen: Why not?
Cameron: Sure, we can’t really lose anything.
Kristen: Yeah, there’s nothing to lose. And the interesting thing that she says, the worst they can say is wait for the bus. She’s saying, well, we got nothing to lose. If they tell us wait for the bus, that’s okay. That’s the worst thing that can happen.
Cameron: If you ask, it’s not like they’re gonna like get mad and slap you. For asking, no? Yes. Like there’s no real punishment for asking.
Kristen: That’s right. Okay. So then Jeff says, But then we’ll miss the wedding.
Cameron: Amanda says, we’ll never know unless we ask. Anyway, I’m really hungry.
Kristen: Okay. So right now, they don’t have many options. Okay. So this is a good option right now. Let’s go ahead and listen to that dialogue one more time.
Power Dialog
Jeff: Okay, now that we’re in Danbury, we still have another 200 kilometers to go. What now?
Amanda: Since there are no rental cars and the next bus leaves in eight hours, we have to think outside the box.
Jeff: Why don’t we go into that little diner over there and talk to some locals and tell them we’re in a bind?
Amanda: It’s worth a try. The worst they can say is wait for the bus.
Jeff: But then we’ll miss the wedding.
Amanda: We’ll never know unless we ask. Anyway, I’m really hungry.
Power Note
1. Think outside the box: 고정관념을 깨다. 틀을 깨다. 창의적으로 생각하다.
Kristen: It’s time for Power Note. If you think outside the box, it means that you are breaking away from the normal way of thinking, the conventional thinking.
1)
A: What can I do to make this application essay stand out among the others?
B: Try to think outside the box and present an original idea.
Kristen: You know, competition is great, especially in Korea. Sometimes it’s important to think outside the box a little bit so that you can stand out.
Cameron: It’s true.
Kristen: Because it’s the same answer.
Cameron: If you do everything and say everything that everyone does, you’re not special.
Kristen: You’re not special.
Cameron: You’re replaceable.
Kristen: That’s not good.
Cameron: Uh-uh.
Kristen: You want to be irreplaceable.
2) We had to think outside the box to solve the engineering problem.
Cameron: Yeah, what is that expression? I think there’s an expression in Korean about like, 틀에 박힌 생각 Right?
Kristen: Yes! 틀에 박힌
Cameron: Yeah, so this 틀 is the box, is the 틀. Right. So you’re trying to get out of that.
Kristen: Yeah.
Cameron: 틀, yeah.
Kristen: Look at you.
Cameron: Differently. Think outside the normal everything that everyone thinks about.
Kristen: We’ll just have to come up with our own expressions.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: You know, get out of the 틀
Cameron: Get out of the 틀
Kristen: This advice is really very important for the younger generation, you know, younger listeners of Power English. This is an important piece of advice if you go to an interview or if you have an application where you have to write an essay. You really want truth in your voice, but you also have to think outside the box a little bit and not do what everybody else is doing.
Cameron: That’s so true.
Kristen: It really is so important. It’s the only way that will make you like, oh, oh yeah, I remember that girl or I remember that man.
Cameron: Yeah. It’ll make you not boring. Let’s be honest. Let’s not be boring.
Kristen: Yeah. Let’s not be boring. Let’s not be boring. Boring is boring. Okay.
2. in a bind: 곤경에 빠진
Up a Creek without a Paddle: 곤경에 빠진,
To be in a bind is to be in a difficult situation. However, not only just a difficult situation, but in a situation where you really can’t get out of it for a while.
1)
A: Jack, you look stressed. What’s wrong?
B: I’m in a bind, Mike. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday and I forgot to get her a present.
Kristen: Oh no!
Cameron: So this feels like the reason it’s a bind is it feels like it’s too late to go buy her a present. You know, it’s not like a week out. It’s like, oh, I’m in a bind. I have to buy my girlfriend a present.
Kristen: It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.
Cameron: We have a date at 5:00.
Kristen: We have a dinner date. At six. I’m in a bind.
Cameron: Yeah, I don’t know what to do. I got no options available to me.
Kristen: So in this case, as you can see, there is a kind of time restriction.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: Like there’s this kind of you’re stuck with only two hours of time.
2) I was in a bind with no car, but Sandra gave me a ride.
Cameron: Yes. In a bind with no cart, you can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything.
Kristen: Well, especially if, you know, when you have a situation where the subway station, it stops running and there aren’t taxis. Maybe you’re like in a remote countryside area. You’re in a bind. You want to go home, but there’s no way to get home.
Cameron: You know there’s some areas of Seoul if you stay past midnight, the taxis aren’t there anymore. Like there are like hot spots for the taxis at different times of night in Seoul. And if you don’t get those to that timing right, you could be waiting for a taxi for like two hours.
Kristen: Yeah, you could be definitely in a bind.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: So that’s to be in a bind. Let’s give another example where you could be in a bind, Cameron, aside from taxis.
Cameron: So, aside from taxis, you could be in a bind. For anything dealing with scheduling, where you’re not able to go anywhere, something gets canceled, let’s say that… are oh here’s a good one, I think I bring this movie up a little too much, you know, “The Devil wears Prada,” whenever she has to like get the “Harry Potter” book for Miranda Priestly, but she can’t find it, she’s like I don’t know where to get the “Harry Potter” book blah and she calls that guy and she’s like I’m in a bind, can you help me?
Kristen: Right.
Cameron: She needs to get the thing, but she doesn’t. She needs to get the books, but she doesn’t know where to find the books. She has no options. Yeah.
Kristen: She’s stuck.
Cameron: She’s stuck.
Kristen: Yeah, so it’s like she’s tried everything.
Cameron: Yeah.
Kristen: But nothing is working and that’s why she’s in a bind so she is originally in a difficult situation and she’s trying to get out of it, by trying to find the book. She makes an effort, but it’s not working.
Cameron: She doesn’t have options.
Kristen: That’s why she’s in a bind. Okay, great.
3. worth a try: 시도할 만하다. 뭐 어때, 해 보지 뭐.
If something is worth a try, it’s kind of like, why not? Do it.
Cameron:
What could it hurt?
Kristen: Yeah, it’s not gonna hurt. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
1)
A: I’ve got such a bad headache.
B: I heard a big glass of water can help. It’s definitely worth a try.
Okay. Yeah, drinking water. Yeah. It’s not going to hurt you. Yeah.
Kristen: Well, yeah, it’s not going to hurt you. Yeah, it’s worth a try. Whether it works or doesn’t, it’s okay.
2) We didn’t know if the experiment would work, but it was worth a try.
Cameron: Why not? Well. It could help, but it’s not going to hurt it.
Kristen: Right.
Cameron: You know? Yeah. It’s just one time I made some really salty food by accident. Like I tried to pour in salt and I just like.
Kristen: It fell in.
Cameron: It was like too much. So, my friend was like, why don’t you put in some honey? So, like you counter the sweet and the salty. I was like, eh, worth a try. The food, you know, if I can’t eat it, it’s no worse.
Kristen: It’s worth a try.
Cameron: Try something, right?
Kristen: That’s right. Okay. So do it. There’s no loss.
Cameron: Yeah. I’ll just throw the food away and order a pizza. Okay. Yeah.
4. Now that–: 이제 — 했으니
Kristen: Our power pattern now that means what?
Cameron: We’ve reached a new stage. What will our actions be now?
Kristen: Okay,
1) now that the sun is setting, we should find a place to set up our tent.
Cameron: Yeah, don’t set up your tent at lunchtime. Yeah. Wait a little bit later.
Kristen: Sure.
2) Now that Ari is in charge, it’ll be a lot more fun to work here.
Okay. Bob was an awful boss. Yeah.
Kristen: And he’s gone. Oh, thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness. Now that Ari is in charge, I’m so glad.
Cameron: Bob bob bob hello ari. 안녕 아리!. Yeah.
Kristen: And then 안녕히가세요 Bob. Yeah. Okay, locals is our power vocab on page 126. Do check that out. These are the people that live there, right? Yes. The locals.
5. 현지인: locals
차라리 -해야겠다 Might As Well, 포기하다 Throw In The Towel