In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting expression “wiggle room.”
Episode 317 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting expression “wiggle room.” Send your questions about English and your suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“This is Marwa from Iraq, and you’re listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 317 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I am going to teach you an interesting and useful expression. This expression sounds a little bit cute to me, and it is also a little difficult to explain.
Here is the expression. Are you ready? The expression is wiggle room. Wiggle room. That’s wiggle: w-i-g-g-l-e, room: r-o-o-m. Wiggle room.
Before I can try to explain wiggle room, I need to explain the word wiggle. Have you heard the word wiggle before?
Wiggle is a verb that means “to move from side to side quickly” or “to make something else move from side to side quickly.”
For example, let’s say you are going to hang a painting on the wall. So you get a hammer and a nail, and you use the hammer to pound the nail into the wall. And then you realize that the nail is a little bit loose. It’s not in the wall very tight. You can move it back and forth just a little bit. You can wiggle the nail. You can wiggle the nail.
Here’s another example to help you understand wiggle: Imagine that your friend has a puppy, and this puppy is very cute and very happy and very playful. And every time you visit your friend, the puppy sees you, and the puppy wags his tail, and the puppy shakes his body back and forth quickly. The puppy wiggles. The puppy wiggles. The puppy moves back and forth quickly.
If you understand wiggle, it will be a lot easier to understand wiggle room. Wiggle room means “the ability or the opportunity to move something a little bit.” It does not refer to something physical. It doesn’t mean that you are moving something physical like a nail in the wall. But it means “the ability or opportunity to stretch something a little bit” or “to not be too strict, to not be too tight.”
Let me give you an example of this, and then I think you will understand the expression wiggle room.
Let’s say you are taking a class. And the instructor has told everybody, “I want you to make groups of four people. I want everyone to be in a group of four people to work on this project.” You have two friends in this class, and you think it would be fun if your group was only three people instead of four. The instructor has kind of a rule that the groups should be four people, but you hope that your group can just be three people instead.
So you ask the instructor, “Is there any wiggle room when it comes to the groups? You said they need to be four people. Is it okay if they’re three? Do we have any wiggle room? Do we have the ability to be a little bit loose with this rule? You said four, but can we move that a little bit and say that three is okay? Or are you very strict about this? Are you very strict, or is there any wiggle room? Can we not be so strict?”
That’s what wiggle room means. It means “the room or the space or the opportunity to wiggle something, to be a little bit loose about something.” Instead of following a rule in a very strict way, if you have wiggle room, you can follow the rule a little bit more loosely. You don’t have to be so strict.
And that is wiggle room. A very interesting, useful, and cute-sounding expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 317 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Marwa recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode. And until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!