This mini episode teaches you the useful phrase “like the back of my hand.”
Episode 150 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful phrase “like the back of my hand.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
The expression I want to teach you today is “like the back of my hand.” Like the back of my hand. That's like—l-i-k-e—the back—b-a-c-k—of my hand—h-a-n-d. Like the back of my hand.
We usually use this phrase as part of a whole sentence: “I know this like the back of my hand.” I know this like the back of my hand. What does this mean? When we say, “I know this like the back of my hand,” we are saying, “I am very familiar with this. I know everything about this. I know all of the details. I am an expert about this.” And we usually use this when we are talking about places.
If you have lived in the same neighborhood for twenty years, you might say, “I know this neighborhood like the back of my hand.” In other words: “I know everything about this neighborhood. It is very familiar to me. I know every building, I know every store, I know every tree, I know every dog who lives in this neighborhood, I know everybody who lives here.” I know this place like the back of my hand.
When you think about it, this is kind of a strange expression, isn't it? How often do you look at the back of your hand? How often do you study the back of your hand and memorize all of the details? Probably not very often. But that is the expression that we use when we want to express that we are an expert at something, or we know everything about something—usually a place. That is “like the back of my hand,” and maybe you will have the chance to use this expression soon.