In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting English phrase “bread and butter.”
Episode 471 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting English phrase “bread and butter.” 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 Gayatri from India, and you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 471 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 “bread and butter.” Bread and butter. That’s b-r-e-a-d, a-n-d, b-u-t-t-e-r. Bread and butter.
You know what bread is, and you know what butter is. But you might not know this phrase, “bread and butter.”
Yes, of course, it can refer to those two foods together, bread and butter. But I’m thinking of a more unexpected meaning of this phrase. The phrase “bread and butter” can refer to the thing that you do to make a living, the thing that you do to earn your money, or the thing that you do to earn most or a good part of your money.
Let me give you a couple of examples of situations where somebody might use this phrase, “bread and butter.”
Imagine that someone says this:
“I am an architect, and designing apartment buildings is my bread and butter.” Designing apartment buildings is my bread and butter. This means “I am an architect, and the way that I earn most of my money—or a lot of the money—that I earn is by designing apartment buildings.”
Architects can do lots of different things. They can design all kinds of different buildings and structures. But this person is saying that mostly what he does is design apartment buildings. So he could say that designing apartment buildings is his bread and butter.
He could also say it in a slightly different way. He could say that apartment buildings are his bread and butter. Both of those ways work. They mean the same thing. “Designing apartment buildings is my bread and butter,” and “Apartment buildings are my bread and butter.” In both cases, it means that designing apartment buildings is the way that he makes most of his money as an architect, or the way that he makes a lot of his money as an architect.
Here is another example:
Imagine that somebody owns a jewelry store. They own a jewelry store, and they sell all kinds of jewelry. But this person says, “I own a jewelry store, and inexpensive earrings are my bread and butter.” Inexpensive earrings are my bread and butter. In other words, even though this person owns a jewelry store and sells lots of different kinds of jewelry, the way they make most of their money, or a lot of their money, is by selling inexpensive earrings.
In both of these examples, “bread and butter” is used to mean something like “the thing or the activity that brings in all or a lot of a person’s money, a person’s income.” This describes the way they make their living, or the thing they depend on to make their living.
That is “bread and butter,” an interesting expression that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 471 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 Gayatri 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!