In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting and useful expression “know the drill.”
Episode 408 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting and useful expression “know the drill.” 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, everyone. This is Damon, from Nanjing, China. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 408 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 about a common and useful phrase. The phrase is “to know the drill.” To know the drill.
That’s t-o, k-n-o-w, t-h-e, d-r-i-l-l. To know the drill.
Before I explain what this phrase means and how we use it, let me tell you a little something about the word drill. You might have heard the word drill before. And when drill is a noun, it can mean several different things. When you hear drill, probably you first think about the tool, a tool for making holes. That is not the meaning that we see in this phrase, “to know the drill.”
In this phrase, drill means “a procedure.” In other words, a way of doing things. A way of doing things that you might need to practice or you might need to have special knowledge about.
This meaning of drill might be familiar to you because of phrases like “fire drill.” In schools and in some offices, people will have fire drills, where everyone can practice the right procedure to follow if there is a fire. A drill is a special procedure, a special set of steps that you have to follow in certain situations.
What does that have to do with this phrase, “to know the drill”? We use “to know the drill” to mean “to understand how something works, to understand a procedure, to understand the mysterious rules that determine how something works or how people do something.”
If you know the drill, that means you know how something works, or you know how to do something, or you have experience with something.
Here is an example of a situation where somebody might say, “to know the drill”:
Imagine two people who work in an office. One day, for some reason, the boss is in a terrible mood. This happens sometimes. And when the boss is in a bad mood, things can get very uncomfortable and unpleasant in the office.
And one employee says to another, “Well, what should we do? The boss is in a terrible mood. What should we do?”
And the second employee says, “You know the drill: If we just wait until after lunch, everything will be fine.”
In this example, “you know the drill” means “you know how this works, you know the procedure, you know what to do in this situation.”
And I guess in their workplace, all you need to do is avoid the boss until after lunch, and then he will be in a better mood. That’s how it works in their office. So if you know the drill, in this example, that means you know how to act when the boss is in a bad mood.
One thing I want to point out about this expression is that we always say, “know the drill.” We never say, “know a drill,” or “know this drill, or “know that drill.” It is always “the" drill: "to know the drill.”
And that is “know the drill,” an interesting and useful phrase that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 408 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 Damon 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!