Feifei: Hello and welcome to The English
Neil: And I'm Neil. Hi everyone.
Feifei: Is everything OK, Neil? You sound
Neil: Yeh, I'm OK, I'm just a bit frustrated.
I spent a few hours organising all of the
books on my bookshelves last weekend,
and put the books back in a mess.
They're all out of order again now!
Feifei: Oh, that is totally out of order!
Neil: Yeah, they are now totally
Feifei: I'm talking about your wife,
it wasn't fair that all your hard work
should have been more considerate.
Neil: Ohhh, I see. You mean 'out of order'
in a different sense! My books are out of
order because they're disorganised,
because she was inconsiderate.
Feifei: That's exactly right! Let's listen
to some other examples of how you could
The referee in Saturday's football match
I couldn't believe he sent off
our best player - he was obviously biased!
A passenger on the train this morning
started shouting at me. She said
she was really out of order! I couldn't help
it. The train stopped abruptly.
It's the fourth time this week -
Feifei: This is The English We Speak
the phrase 'out of order'. This phrase
is disorganised or in the wrong order,
but it is also used in spoken English to
say that someone has been unfair
or inconsiderate. Could you give us
another example of this, Neil?
Neil: Well, I wrote a script last week which
you said was rubbish! I thought that was
Feifei: Oh dear! I'm sorry if I offended you,
have misunderstood what I meant!
When you printed it out and gave it to me,
I couldn't read anything - there
Neil: And that's a third meaning
Feifei: Yes. 'Out of order' also means
broken! Well, that's all we have...
Neil: Oh dear, it seems Feifei's mic
trying to say was that's all we have
time for this week, so join us again next