English idioms: to wing it (to improvise)

Posted on September 25, 2006
Filed under 2-minute English, Idioms and slang, Listening, Upper intermediate | 6 Comments

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [2:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Transcript

Hi and welcome to 2-minute English, brought to you by Better At English dot com. Today’s phrase is

to wing it

"I didn’t have time to prepare this speech, so I’ll have to wing it."

" She didn’t spend much time getting ready for the meeting; she just kind of winged it"

"I don’t have time to study for the test tomorrow, so I’ll be winging it"

to wing it

Meaning

To wing it is an idiom that means to improvise, to do something without proper preparation or time to rehearse. People often talk about winging it when they have to do something difficult that they didn’t have time to prepare — like a make speech or give a presentation. They might say something like "Sorry if I seem a bit disorganized, I’m totally winging it." You tell people that you’re winging it, that you’re improvising, so that they won’t expect too much from you, or so that they will be more forgiving if you make a mistake.

I have a little note about pronunciation for you. In rapid native-speaker speech, the final g on the i-n-g tends to disappear. So it sounds like

I’m wingin’ it
I’m wingin’ it
I’m wingin’ it here

Rather than I’m wingING it. Do you hear the difference?

WingING
Wingin’


Authentic example

In today’s authentic example we’ll hear a bit of Seth Godin’s presentation at the GEL 2006 conference.

And I want to…talk about what I think seven of those reasons might be. But first I gotta take a minute…I gotta explain…I’ve never given this presentation before, not one word of it, not one picture, and I may never give it again. But I’m wingin’ it so we’ll see what happens…But…what does it mean to be broken?

If you are an upper-intermediate or advanced learner, I highly recommend you watch the full presentation on Google video. It’s really funny, entertaining and full of useful vocabulary.

Thanks for tuning in to 2-minute English. We’ll see you next time!

Look up to wing it in the dictionary.

See examples of how to wing it is used.

Link to further listening resource

You can find the full video of Mr. Godin’s presentation, “It’s Broken,” at Google Video. If there are words or phrases you’re curious about, let us know: we may feature them on an upcoming podcast! :-)

6 Comments

Add to del.icio.us | Digg | reddit | StumbleUpon

Comments

6 Responses to “English idioms: to wing it (to improvise)”

  1. Luigi says:
    September 26, 2007 at 15:38

    Is not the first time that I visit your web site!
    I like it very much and ´d like to have your newsletter if you have one. Bye
    Luigi

    Reply
  2. jithin says:
    March 25, 2008 at 12:32

    This is lovely i would be happy to known these kind of words and the meaning of these every day because people can improvise thier communication by seeing and hearing it from u

    Bye Jithin

    Reply
  3. Robert Garcia says:
    September 11, 2008 at 01:27

    What is the meaning of the phrases:
    “See you next Tuesday.”
    Or
    “See you next time?” These phrases may carry a vulgar meaning very different from the actual words which make of the phrases. Thanks.

    Reply
    • Lori says:
      March 24, 2010 at 11:32

      If these carry any vulgar meaning, it’s new to me. Although pretty much anything can be read as vulgar given the right situation and context.

      As for the meaning of “see you” as part of the ritual of saying goodbye to someone, try looking here:

      see – Definition of see verb (MEET) from Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus http://bit.ly/byS2WW

      Reply
  4. Jermaine says:
    March 24, 2010 at 06:10

    Past Tense of winging it :?:

    Reply
    • Lori says:
      March 24, 2010 at 11:30

      Technically it would be “winged it.” But I think speakers would probably use wing with “had to,” like “I had to wing it.” Try a quick’n'dirty Google corpus search:

      “winged it” – Google Search http://bit.ly/cUlD9X (about 45 000 hits)

      “had to wing it” – Google Search http://bit.ly/do2a7l (over 3 000 000 hits)

      “Winging it” is something we don’t usually like to do, but are forced to do because we didn’t have time or opportunity to prepare properly. So it makes sense that speakers would tend to use “had to wing it.”

      Reply

Leave a Reply