This mini episode teaches you the useful phrase “jump the gun.”
Episode 151 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you how and when to use the useful phrase “jump the gun.” 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'm going to teach you today is to jump the gun. To jump the gun. That's jump—j-u-m-p. The. Gun—g-u-n. To jump the gun.
What does it mean to jump the gun? To jump the gun means “to do something too soon, to do something before the right time, to do something before it is appropriate.” Here is an example of a sentence that uses jump the gun: My friend jumped the gun when he told everyone about his new job before he had even had a job interview. My friend jumped the gun when he told everyone about his new job before he had even had a job interview.
In other words, my friend acted too soon. He did something before the right time when he told everybody that he got a new job before he had even had an interview. He didn't really have the job yet, and he told everyone that he did. He told them too soon. He told them before the right time. That is a situation where you could use jump the gun.
Why does jump the gun mean “to do something before the right time” or “to do something too early”? In some races, a person fires a gun to signal that it's time to start running. So when you hear that gun, that means it's time to go. If you start running before you hear the gun, you have jumped the gun. You have gone before the gun.
That is jump the gun, a useful expression that you might hear or find a place to use soon.