{"id":13647,"date":"2022-06-16T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plainenglish.com\/?post_type=expressions&p=13647"},"modified":"2024-11-20T23:13:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T05:13:39","slug":"brand-new","status":"publish","type":"expressions","link":"https:\/\/plainenglish.com\/expressions\/brand-new\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand new"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today’s English expression is “brand new.” This is going to be a short one\u2014but I don’t want to hear any complaining <\/span> because I already taught you “as the crow flies” in the main lesson.<\/p>\n You’re going to use “brand-new” when you want to emphasize <\/span> that something is very new. There’s no time limit on “brand-new”; it’s all about your judgment <\/span> and how new something seems.<\/p>\n In today’s lesson about Google Maps<\/a> , I was telling you about the feature that lets you go back in time on street view. You can see photos from the street at various points in the past\u2014 whenever <\/span> Google took a new street view photo of that building. And to illustrate <\/span> that, I suggested you look at the Bank of America Tower in Chicago. This is a brand-new skyscraper <\/span>. It opened in October 2020. Today, it’s May 2022, so it’s a year and a half old. But it barely<\/a> got any use during COVID, so I think we can still say <\/span> this building is brand new. It’s very new.<\/p>\n Don’t go outside in the rain if you’re wearing brand-new sneakers <\/span>\u2014you’ll get them wet and dirty <\/span>. You know that new sneakers are perfect, no scratches <\/span>, no stains <\/span>, no creases <\/span>, no spots <\/span>, no nothing. They smell great, they fit well <\/span>. You don’t want to wear brand-new sneakers outside in bad weather.<\/p>\n How old is a brand-new pair of sneakers? I would say a week, maybe a month tops <\/span>. Sneakers might last\u2014I don’t know\u2014two or three years, so the first week, the first month really is new. But wait a minute. I just said that 110 North Wacker is a brand-new building, and it opened a year and a half ago! That’s because a skyscraper like that can last a hundred years <\/span> or more, so the first year, first two years, maybe even the first three years, you can still call it a brand-new building. Year-old sneakers <\/span> are most certainly <\/span> not brand new.<\/p>\n Has this ever happened to you? You have a bottle of soda <\/span> and you lose the cap <\/span>, then you want to close the bottle and put it back in the fridge, but you don’t have the cap. No, I didn’t think so\u2014this isn’t a problem for me either. But Coca-Cola is introducing a brand-new bottle design <\/span> that keeps the cap attached <\/span> to the bottle so you don’t lose it. The design is brand-new.<\/p>\n My first reaction <\/span> to this was, talk about a solution in search of a problem <\/span>! But the real reason is not consumer convenience <\/span>, but recycling <\/span>. We often throw the cap in the trash and recycle the bottle, when in fact the cap is recyclable, too. This brand-new bottle design will make it more likely that the cap winds up <\/span> in the recycling as well as the bottle.<\/p>\n Now it’s time for JR’s song of the week. He has selected “ Hold My Hand <\/span>” by Hootie and the Blowfish. It came out in 1994 on the band’s most popular album ever, called “ Cracked Rear View <\/span>.” Hootie & the Blowfish were really popular in the mid-90s <\/span>, and this was their famous album with a number of hits on it. “Hold My Hand” is one of them; I saw one critic <\/span> say that the song was a perfect symbol for the band’s good-time vibes <\/span>. And I do agree with that. So thanks JR for this song of the week.<\/p>\n And that brings us to the end of today’s Plain English. This was lesson number 477, which you can find at PlainEnglish.com\/477. And remember, to get the very most out of Plain English, do consider joining as a Plain English Plus+<\/a> member. That allows you to upgrade your English with step-by-step video tutorials, live conversation calls, personalized feedback, the fast version of the audio, translations, exercises, and much more. Check that out at PlainEnglish.com\/Plus<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You use \u201cbrand-new\u201d when you want to emphasize that something is very new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":13648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"terminology_category":[139],"lesson_number":[1906],"keywords":[1201,1108],"content_tag":[],"level":[],"class_list":["post-13647","expressions","type-expressions","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","terminology_category-expression","lesson_number-1906","keywords-brand","keywords-new"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJR\u2019s song of the week<\/h3>\n
See you next time!<\/h3>\n