In business, part 2

This week we are continuing our look at phrases that may be useful in a business context.

To start with, here is some language which may be helpful when you are talking about the movement of goods and documents.

The item was lost in transit.

Or, to put it another way, it disappeared in the post or while it was being delivered.

It suffered transit damage.

This should be self-explanatory: it wasn't in the same condition when it arrived as it had been when it was sent.

Transit times vary from country to country.

Transit times is the term for the time taken for something to get from A to B.

You'll need to fill in a customs chit.

Notice that in American English you fill out one of these.  A chit, by the way, is simply a kind of form, such as a receipt.

An internal communication may be:

Fax this through to accounts.

However, don't be surprised if you find yourself working in an office without a fax machine.  They seem to be on the brink of extinction in the UK, just surviving a little while longer than video cassettes and floppy discs.

Now let's look at some language you might need in a meeting.

Would anyone like to add anything to the agenda before we get started?

The agenda is the list of all the items that are going to be discussed in a meeting.  You may find people spend a lot of time discussing what they are going to discuss and less time discussing it!

Could I just make a point here?

Can I chip in here with a suggestion?

This means the same as interrupt.

The way I see it…

And when you get the feeling that the same point is being made over and over again in the meeting:

Aren't we just going round in circles here?

When the meeting finally does get moving again, you may hear this:

Let's go on to the next item on the agenda.

Two other ways of saying the same thing are:

Let's move on to the next item on the agenda.

Moving on to the next item on the agenda.

You will probably have noticed let's in some of these phrases.  This is short for let us.

Has this idea been fully costed?

Yes, that's right, the word cost with a regular past tense ending is a real word.  If you cost a proposal it means that you calculate the amount of money it will need.  The question in the example is asking if someone has done this.

It's all a question of supply and demand.

This is a standard economics expression.

We can't go over budget on this project.

We are not in a position to spend more money than we have agreed before the project began.  A related phrase is:

We came in under budget.

So we spent less than we originally thought we would need.

A couple of useful idioms:

We're between a rock and a hard place.

You have two options available and you do not like the sound of either of them.

That would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Someone has suggested a solution to a minor problem.  However, the solution is too expensive, or uses far more effort than necessary, when a simpler option is available.

The trouble with idioms is that they can be overused.  If you fill your spoken English with so many idioms that you hardly ever say anything in your own words, you will give the impression that you have little understanding of the language.  When native speakers do this, the impression they give is that they don't have any ideas of their own.