I like to bake sweet treats, especially at this time of the year.
In fact, every year I host a cookie exchange for the ladies in my neighborhood.
Certainly not every modern American woman likes to work in the kitchen, but I do think more of us like to bake around the holidays.
Baking is the kind of activity that requires a lot of measurements. Often you have to be precise.
For example, there’s a big difference between a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of salt.
Other times you can just eyeball it. That means you can estimate how much is needed.
Measurements help us quantify things. I know that you know quantifiers like many, much, a few.
These words go before a noun to express how many or how much.
In this lesson, we’ll go over some conversational words and phrases that help us express a number or an amount that’s not exact.
We’ll call them quantifying expressions because we don’t always place them before a noun like a regular quantifier, but they still help us quantify things.
Do use a lot of salt? Some people season foods with a pinch of salt.
And how much is a pinch? Well, it might be a quarter of a teaspoon, more or less.
We use “more or less” right after some kind of measurement to mean that we’re not being exact. Here are some more examples:
Her new apartment is 1,000 square feet, more or less. It's not that big.
They lived in Florida for twenty years, more or less.
A similar expression is give or take. It means “approximately." It implies I may be off by just a little.
We often add a number or an amount after this expression. Look at these examples.
Sometimes you need to guess a number, but you’re certain it couldn’t be any less than your estimate.
That’s when we use “good” + a quantity.
It may sound strange at first, but start listening and you’ll hear people say things like this:
I must have waited there for a good twenty minutes! I listened to several songs.
Her husband is a good two inches taller than she is.
It took us a good hour to reach the cabin.
We can also use a single word before a quantity when we make an estimate.
Check out these examples with "about" and "around."
“Some” is a word people play around with when they estimate.
You may hear "some" directly before a number or even after it to make a hyphenated word.
You’ll see similar use of “something” when we talk about people’s ages or prices:
Let’s end with a fun expression. This one makes use of an IF-clause.
Perhaps you’ve also watched some my lessons on conditionals in English.
If you have, then you know there are plenty of conversational expressions with IF.
Here’s one we use when we talk about people’s ages:
If she's a day OR If he's a day. This means the person must be at least this old.
Here’s a practice task you can do in the comments. I’ll try to offer corrections as time allows, but you can also help one another.
Choose one of the new quantifying expressions and create your own example.
Now some are more common than others. "Give or take"..."more or less" are very common.
"If she's a day"...a little less, but still worth knowing.
I look forward to reading your examples.
That’s all for now. If you found these expressions useful, please give this video a thumbs-up.