Podcast: Jump ship

Podcast Inglês Online

Hello! No podcast Inglês Online de hoje eu falo sobre dois idioms que você vai ouvir o tempo todo em sitcoms e filmes americanos (e ouvir de falantes nativos também). Os dois tem a ver com abandonar algo que você estava fazendo. Ouça já!

Transcrição

Hello! You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Download the Inglês Online app at the Google Play Store or the Apple Store – search for “inglês online Ana”. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!

We’re beginning with a great expression today: jump ship. That’s it, jump ship. It’s basically like an intransitive verb, just to go back to grammar a little bit. An intransitive verb is a verb that needs no complement. For example, “give” is not intransitive. When someone tells you “John gave.” you feel like asking… John gave what? Like, what did John give? And to whom?

So, jump ship is not like that – when you say someone jumped ship, you’re saying this person abandoned something they were a part of. I think the most frequent kind of example for this expression has to do with, let’s say, a group project of any kind that has a number of people involved in it.

It might be a company with dozens of employees and one day the vice-president of marketing and sales decides to jump ship. Why? Because he and the CEO significantly disagree about the direction the company should go in. After several meetings, the VP of marketing thought to himself “I can’t go on in this company if this is where we are headed. Continuing to ignore our competitors will lead to disaster.” And he quits.

This is a high profile company so his decision makes the headlines on some industry magazines: John Doe, VP of Marketing and Sales at the Green Train, jumps ship over disagreements. And the top of the article reads “I couldn’t go on like that anymore, Mr. Doe said. I can’t watch the company self-destruct because it refuses to pay attention to the competition.”

So, ok, whatever the reason, many people sooner or later jump ship from something. Listen to what Fast Company magazine tweeted out a few days ago – and I will read the first line of the article as well.

https://twitter.com/FastCompany/status/1033613684193546242

So, in this case, Tesla employees are jumping ship – they’re abandoning their positions at Tesla – for better pay at Apple. Tesla is a tech company as well, but they develop electric vehicles, solar panels, and other stuff. So there you go. People may choose to jump ship from a project, a company, an enterprise… for many different reasons.

Now, when someone jumps ship from a situation – listen to this: that doesn’t necessarily mean that this person is a quitter. If someone calls you a quitter, let’s just say… that’s not a compliment, ok. “Quitter” obviously comes from the word “quit” and a quitter is someone who gives up easily. You know, people who will start something up and at the first sign of a hard time they’ll give up? And then they do that repeatedly? That person would be seen very often as a quitter.

So, listen to what this guy, Kurt, tweeted out:

https://twitter.com/KurtInMilwaukee/status/1032671403072528384

“Hang in there” means be strong, endure this tough situation you’re in a little bit longer – don’t be a quitter! Now, I would argue that there is a time to quit and that’s when you look at what you’ve been doing and you realise that you were mistaken about lots of things and your enterprise just isn’t progressing the way you expected, and then you quit.

So, that wouldn’t be an example of a quitter. A quitter would be someone who repeatedly quits something without giving it a proper go. Can you give me an example from your own life? See you soon.

Key expressions

• jump ship
• be a quitter

Vocabulary

it makes (the) headlines = vira manchete (de jornal ou revista)

John Doe = nome genérico, mais ou menos equivalente a dizer “fulano de tal”

sooner or later = cedo ou tarde

for better pay = por melhor pagamento

an enterprise = um empreendimento (pode ser um projeto, um trabalho com objetivo definido, uma start-up, etc)

compliment = elogio

give it a proper go = tentar de verdade