Business English Idioms

I’m going to tell you a story about a company that is in financial trouble.

I will show you pictures and I’d like you to guess the idioms using the pictures and the context of the story.

ante up

at a loss

across the board

back on (their) feetlast year

this year

at all costs

bean-counter

ball park figure

bang for your buck

1. What was the company’s problem?

2. What would you do if you were the CEO of this company?

I’m going to tell you a story about a company that is in financial trouble. I will show you pictures and I’d like you to guess the idioms using the pictures and the context of the story.

Last year the company had to ante up a lot of money in taxes, and they were forced to sell some of their property at a significant loss. Because they lost so much money last year, they had to institute across the board pay cuts; everyone’s salary decreased significantly. This year, the company is back on its feet and the CEOs vowed to make a profit at all costs. They asked the bean counters to give them a ball park figure on how much the company would earn by moving production to China or Thailand. They found that they would get a lot more bang for their buck if they moved to China, but they were concerned that they might have problems with human rights organizations and social activists.

What was the company’s problem? What would you do if you were the CEO of this company?

Or

Put the idioms in order to match the words in bold in the story.

1. I had to ante up a lot o money to get my car fixed.

2. The computer company decided to give the workers an across-the-board increase in their salary.

3. He plans to go to school at all costs.

4. We were forced to sell the computers at a big loss.

5. The contractor gave us a ball park figure for the cost of repairing the new building.

6. My sister is back on her feet after losing her job last year.

7. We were able to get a lot of bang for our buck when we advertised on the Internet.

8. We asked the bean-counters to look over the figures in the new budget.

a. including everyone or everything

b. return to good financial health

c. pay, produce a necessary amount of money

d. at any expense of time, effort, or money

e. a rough estimate or figure

f. value for the money spent

g. an accountant

h. sell something and lose money