AEE 2655: Are You Slammed with Work? How to Talk About It

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2655. Are you slammed with work? How to talk about it? welcome to the all ears english podcast downloaded more than 200 million times are you feeling stuck with your english we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your american hosts lindsey mcmahon the english adventurer and michelle kaplan the new york radio girl

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Do you ever need a good way to say that you have a lot of work today? Get ways to say that something is happening to you that is out of your control in English.

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Hey, good, Lindsay. Lindsay, how was this past winter for you? Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? It's been easy. It's been summer. It's been a California winter over here.

Nothing like what you've been dealing with. Yeah, for some reason, we never got any snow. We never got any cold weather. I mean, right now, this is coming out in the summer, so we're...

We're talking about this way in the past tense, but we had an easy winter over here in Colorado, but you over there on the East Coast got slammed, right? We got slammed with snow this year. It was crazy. And then one of the snowstorms, there was a lot of snow, but the good thing was it was getting slightly warmer.

So the snow melted fairly quickly, but one of the other ones, it was so... cold that it just wasn't melting and it was just i mean for like a couple weeks it was just like still just ice oh yeah it was crazy so we got slammed for sure you got slammed yeah yeah

So, but today we're going to share three verbs that you can use to talk about things that impacted you in a big way. So, and they can be sometimes sudden. So this is going to be a really interesting one. But before we get to it, we just really want to thank our reviewers.

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Definitely. All right. Love it. So let's go through it. So slammed, right? That's the one we already use. So Lindsay, what does it mean to be slammed?

Yeah. I like saying this. It means something hits you in a forceful, hard way. And it's kind of diverse, the situations we could use here. At the top of the show, we talked about a blizzard, a snowstorm, a

Maybe a hurricane comes through and you get slammed by a hurricane. It reminds me of where my parents' beach house was. We sold it. But they live on the harbor south of Boston.

And it's this little cove which is super exposed to the open ocean. And so every time there's a storm in New England – that's where the reporter goes and they stand at the very end of the lighthouse that's jetting out into the ocean and they're there and they're like swaying in the wind and i'm in situate massachusetts and oh my god there goes my hat and like oh my god this house is going to get carried into the ocean it is so oh my gosh oh my like we're the target and there's always a massive flooding so that house always got slammed with hurricanes snowstorms in the winter they're really bad yeah it was crazy that's why we sounds like it sounds like it um so but yeah you can get slammed with anything like other things too right like an expensive ticket right maybe you get a speeding ticket yeah any kind of fine or fee right getting getting slammed it's like

an expense comes to you. So you wouldn't say that if you just went and chose to buy an expensive car because you chose it. So you're kind of, it's a bit of a victim thing, right? Right.

Yes, exactly. You're on the receiving end. Yes, exactly. Whatever it is. Right. So it could also be like your workload or emails. Like I got slammed with 50 emails and I'm working through all of them, right?

It's always Monday morning. I'm always slammed when I try to get into my inbox. I just slammed with emails. But then for some reason, they all come at the same time.

It's either nothing through the week or it's tons at the same time. Everything comes through right in the same couple of hours. It's weird. Yeah, that works.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And what about criticism? I mean, a politician could get slammed with criticism. Maybe there's some kind of story that comes out, right?

Yeah. Or maybe I mean, if you've had some sort of I mean, or maybe you gave a presentation and you got slammed with questions and critiques. Yeah. by the audience.

But let's do a few more examples of each of these. So the first one is, we were slammed by a huge blizzard last weekend. So that's the weather. I'm slammed with work this afternoon, right?

Maybe someone calls to invite you out for an early happy hour or something. You say, I'm sorry, I'm slammed with work this afternoon, right? Mm-hmm. Or I was slammed with a ton of negative reviews after my head waitress quit.

Mm-hmm. Yes. All right. Yeah. So, yeah. But you'll notice sometimes we say we were slammed with, and sometimes we say we were slammed by. Mm-hmm. You know...

Basically, I would say slammed with and this is, you know, very general, we can kind of follow up on this one day. But for with, I would say like, it's often with I was slammed with work. Yeah, I was slammed with like the quantity of something I was slammed with emails.

We were slammed with negative reviews. And I would say slammed by would be more like, The snowstorm, right? Yeah, I would say so. That makes sense. Like slammed by a gust of wind or slammed by a huge snowstorm this winter and you got a ton of them as we said before.

So yeah, you have two preposition options to use. I would say I hear with more often. Personally, but that just depends. Let's just go through the rest of the episode and see what comes up the most.

Right. Yeah. So, but we can always talk more about that another day. So there's hit is the second verb. So hit is also forceful, but it could be emotions as well.

So that's really interesting. So what, what, what, what might we be hit with? In the simplest way, you could also be hit by a blizzard, right? A snowstorm, a thunderstorm, any kind of element, the elements by a gust of wind.

Wind is the worst out here. It gets really windy in certain parts of Colorado, like scary windy. Um, you know, and it's just like, sometimes wind can feel scary. Um, just feels very out of control, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Um, or with some sort of emotion or, you know, more like a, uh, like a, uh, something that's not tangible, right? Like hit with the truth, a realization, the reality hit with sadness, right?

Hit with a wave of sadness. Right. So, and again, the key theme here is, um, Something's happening to you. Something's happening to you. You are not creating this.

You're not seeking it out. You're not purchasing this, right? It's coming to you. You're hit with an issue or a problem, maybe a fine or a setback. We were hit with a few setbacks this year, but we're going to keep pushing through.

Right. Yep. Exactly. So here are some more examples. So we were hit by a terrible thunderstorm or she hit me with the truth. Right. So we don't mean physically punched you.

Right. We mean, she told you the truth. It's just a creative way to say she told me the truth. It hurt, but I needed to hear it. Right. So when you say like, she told me the truth sounds so much different than she hit me with the truth.

It really sounds more sudden. I really like that. Yeah. Intense. Yeah. Yeah. Or the basketball players were hit with huge fines after the fight in the third quarter.

And there are other fancier ways we could say this, like they were assessed a huge fine, but we're not looking for a formal way to say this today. We're looking for a way to emphasize that that came to them. Right? Yes.

Yes, exactly. And again, guys, we have different prepositions. We have with, we have by. I mean, notice we used by with the thunderstorm. I'm more likely to say, oh, we were hit by a thunderstorm than we were hit with a thunderstorm.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's just me. Yeah, I think you're probably right. I think I probably do the same thing. Yeah. All right, so we're going to take a quick break and come back to a few more ways to say this, because this is important to emphasize the direction from which something is coming, right?

Yes, exactly. It's not originating with you, it's coming to you. Okay. Yes. I'm Shannon Maldonado, the founder of YOWI, a gift shop with a focus on artists and handmade objects.

From all platforms I tested, was Shopify absolutely the most useful. Start your gratis proof period on Shopify.com. Okay, Michelle. So struck is another forceful, dramatic way of saying that something happened to you, right?

Yeah. When it comes to weather, we could be struck by lightning. We could be, I guess, struck by, do we say struck by an earthquake? Yeah. I mean, you could say Los Angeles was struck by an earthquake today, I suppose.

Yeah. But struck by lightning is certainly the most common. Yeah. Struck by lightning is super common. yeah yeah i mean do we say struck by a snowstorm i don't think very much no i really don't think we do yeah i would stay with hit or um or which is the other i feel like we say just slammed new england like we got a snowstorm we got a big snowstorm slammed or we had a snowstorm

Right. Um, but there's also an emotion, which is, this is really common struck with anger, struck with sadness, or you could say struck by sadness. Right.

Um, so that's a, that's a very common one. Yeah. And that means again, that just kind of arose within you. Right. Yeah. Um, and again, that's why you're not necessarily creating it.

You're not saying I'm going to be sad now. It just came up inside you spontaneously. Right. Right. Exactly. Um, the family was struck by tragedy. You know, we could say that something like that sort of issue.

Yeah. Yep. So here's a few more, uh, examples. So be careful out there. You don't want to get struck by lightning or I was struck with sadness when he broke up with me struck with sadness.

Yeah. Yeah. Or their family was struck by tragedy, but they overcame with, they overcame it. Yeah. Yeah. And again, here by seems to be the most common and with comes up more often with emotions, right?

Yeah. But this is all kind of fluid. And, you know, again, like I said, we can do a more strict follow up explaining all of the prepositions and seeing, but we're giving you some just basic ideas today. Yeah.

Um, so yeah, so we, so we did today we've covered struck hit and slammed. Um, so should we do a role play? I would love to do a role play, Michelle. Let's do it.

So here we are friends catching up after a long winter. We haven't seen each other all winter, I guess. We're coming out of hibernation here or something. Oh my gosh, that's how it feels.

So how have you been? Oh, I'm fine, but I'm so ready for spring. We were slammed by snowstorms all winter. Oh, I heard. We were hit by a pretty bad thunderstorm last month, but we were okay.

That's good. So how are you? I'm good, but I was hit with a nasty fine because I forgot to pay a parking ticket. Oh, no. Yeah, no good. And I've been slammed by work this week, so I'm so exhausted.

I hope you can relax this weekend. I was really struck by sadness when I heard Tom is moving. Struck by sadness or struck with sadness? Struck with sadness.

You're right. I was struck with sadness. Yes, I know. I said it and it sounded weird. I was struck with sadness. Thank you. When I heard that Tom was moving.

Yeah, exactly. Struck with because we talked about struck with more common with emotions. Yeah, I was struck with. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So we were slammed by snowstorms all winter.

That's how we started the show. And that actually is true for you, right? Yes. And then you said I was hit with a nasty fine. Yes, exactly. And then also I said, we were hit by a pretty bad thunderstorm.

And we said by for preposition is more common with these natural nature events, right? These natural disasters. Yeah. And then you said, sorry, now we're on the work one.

I said, no good. I've been slammed by work this week. Yes, that's what I thought. And then I said I was struck with sadness. This sounded a little bit

Like, I don't know that I would say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is pretty formal. So to be just like, oh, I was struck, you know, by sadness. I might not say that, but we wanted to give you an example.

Yeah, and I think we might have to revisit this term struck with, struck by. We also say I was struck by the fact that something... Seemed obvious. So there is a place for struck by.

Absolutely. Right. So it's like for like kind of like if you're struck by a... situation almost like i was struck by how wonderful um the movie's music was yeah so maybe we'll do another episode on like emotions spontaneous emotions arising or something something like that or or also insights so sometimes it's about emotions sometimes it's about insights

Right. What struck me was, um, we'll come back to that guys another day. We'll come back to it. And also I want to emphasize that sometimes you can just say, you know, I'm really slammed this week.

You don't have to say you're slammed. What is causing you to be slammed with? Yeah. You're just slammed. right yes i'm slammed right i'm totally um yeah so guys head on over we did all ears english episode 26 24 that was how to talk about housing costs without sounding rude exactly good stuff so the connection moment here guys is well i think we're talking about overwhelm in a way some of these are useful for overwhelm or things we can't control um

Like things that are just out of our control. And it's important that you emphasize this. It's a kind of a nuance here of the words you choose show where the thing is originating. Is it originating with you?

Are you creating it? Or is it coming to you? That changes the whole meaning, right? Really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And guys, again, don't, don't, if you're stressed out by the prepositions, don't be, you know, like we can talk more about them, give you some more overall rules.

But today we really wanted to focus on just, you know, the meaning and how it's used and how it can help you connect. So definitely hit follow. We can do a follow up.

If you have any questions, let us know. Yeah. And send those questions to support at allersenglish.com. We will create a follow-up episode based on your question if it's a good specific question.

All right. All right. Very good. Michelle, you have a good day. Talk to you soon. All right. Bye, Lindsay. Bye. See you next time. Start your gratis proof period at shopify.com.