In this mini episode, you will learn the expression “stumble upon.”
Episode 351 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the expression “stumble upon.” Send your questions about English and your comments and suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello! This is Lee, from Busan in Korea. And you’re listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 351 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 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. And that expression is “stumble upon.” Stumble upon. That’s stumble: s-t-u-m-b-l-e, upon: u-p-o-n. Stumble upon.
What does it mean to stumble upon something?
Before I tell you what this expression means, let’s look at these two parts: stumble and upon.
Do you know the verb stumble? To stumble means “to make a mistake” or “to trip when you are walking or running.” In other words, “to almost fall when you are walking or running.”
And upon is kind of a fancy or maybe formal way of saying “on.” That’s what upon is. You will probably not hear the word upon very often in conversation, but you will hear it in this expression, “stumble upon.”
Okay, those are the parts. What do those parts mean when they go together? “Stumble upon” means “to discover or learn something by chance, to discover or learn something without trying to, to discover or learn something without intending to, to discover or learn something just by luck.”
And so you might stumble upon an answer to a question. Or you might stumble upon a solution to a problem. Or you might stumble upon a great new idea.
If you discover something or learn something by accident—or without trying to or without even knowing you are looking for it—you can say that you stumbled upon it.
I guess the idea is that if you stumble upon something, it’s like you are walking down the street when you fall or almost fall. And you look down. And there, on the ground, is the answer, or is something good. You almost fell, and you found something just by luck, right in the place where you almost fell. I guess that’s where this expression comes from.
This expression comes in two other, slightly different forms. We can also say “to stumble onto something.” Stumble onto. And we can say “to stumble on something.”
These all mean the same thing. They are just slightly different ways of saying it.
And that is “stumble upon,” an interesting and useful expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 351 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 Lee 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!