In this mini episode, you will learn the useful phrase “adding insult to injury.”
Episode 452 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the useful phrase “adding insult to injury.” 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
“Hi, everyone. This is Mobina, from Iran. And you are listening to this amazing podcast, Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 452 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 phrase. The phrase is “adding insult to injury.” Adding insult to injury. That’s adding, a-d-d-i-n-g, insult, i-n-s-u-l-t, to, t-o, injury, i-n-j-u-r-y. Adding insult to injury.
You will also hear this phrase as “to add insult to injury.” That’s just another way of wording the same phrase. “Adding insult to injury,” “to add insult to injury.” Those are the same. You will hear both of those.
You will usually hear this phrase added to the beginning of a sentence. It introduces a new sentence. And here is what it means:
To add insult to injury means to make someone’s bad situation even worse. To start with a bad situation and do something that makes that situation even worse.
Here is a situation where we could use the phrase “adding insult to injury” or “to add insult to injury”:
Imagine that someone is driving in a remote area. He is very far away from other people, far away from a town. And his car runs out of gas. His car runs out of gas.
He cannot drive anymore. The only thing he can do is get out of the car and start walking, trying to find help, trying to find a gas station. This is a very bad situation.
But then something else happens: It starts to rain. This makes his bad situation even worse. We could say, “He was driving, but then he ran out of gas. And then, adding insult to injury, it started to rain.” Or we could say, “And then to add insult to injury, it started to rain.”
In other words, his situation was very bad, but then something happened that made his bad situation even worse.
And that is how we use this phrase, to introduce the idea of something that makes a bad situation even worse. It could be something natural like rain, or it could be something that a person does. It doesn’t matter. It works the same way. If you’re talking about something that makes a bad situation worse, you can introduce it by saying, “Adding insult to injury” or “To add insult to injury.”
And that is “adding insult to injury” (or “to add insult to injury”), a useful phrase that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 452 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 Mobina 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!