In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting idiom “on the fly.”
Episode 415 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting idiom “on the fly.” 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 Carla, from Brazil. And you’re listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 415 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 idiom. The idiom is “on the fly.” On the fly.
That’s spelled o-n, t-h-e, f-l-y. On the fly.
The phrase “on the fly” can have more than one meaning, but I think this is the most common meaning. We use on the fly to describe an action that is done quickly or spontaneously or without a lot of planning. If you do something without preparation and without planning, and especially if you do this thing while you are doing something else, we could say that you did this thing on the fly.
This still might sound a little bit strange, so let me give you an example of a situation where we might use the phrase “on the fly.”
Let’s say that you have a friend visiting the town or city where you live. You planned a whole day in your town or city with your friend. You wrote a list of things that you think your friend might enjoy, places you think your friend might like to go to, and you had the whole thing planned. But then something happened: It started to rain.
Now this makes all of your plans no good. Because all of your plans had involved walking from here to there and seeing all these outdoor sites. So now, quickly, you make a new plan with new things to see, new places to go, and new things to do.
We could say that you made this new plan on the fly. You made the plan on the fly. Instead of making this plan by spending a lot of time and thinking about it and looking things up on the internet and asking your friends if they had any good ideas, this time you just made the plan quickly, spontaneously, without a lot of planning or preparation.
That’s how we use “on the fly” to describe this kind of action or activity. And it is an adverb. So we would say, “You did this—you made the new plan—on the fly.” You did it on the fly.
I think originally this phrase meant “while flying” or “in the air.” And maybe it would describe a pilot making a decision quickly, a pilot changing something quickly, changing course quickly while flying. In other words, not looking at maps on the ground and making a careful plan, but spontaneously making a new plan or spontaneously doing something while flying a plane. I think that’s probably where this phrase comes from, but I guess that doesn’t really matter.
The important thing is now it means “done in a spontaneous way without planning and preparation.”
And that is “on the fly,” an interesting idiom that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 415 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have any 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 Carla 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!