Using English at Work：17 Attending the Morning Meeting(3)（在线收听）

My manager is going over some bullet points.

"Bullet points" are lines of text in a document where each line begins with a small circle; sometimes it's a diamond or an arrow. We call those "bullets."

The text usually isn't a complete sentence, but just a short phrase.

Bullet points are often easier and faster to read than long sentences because each idea is on a separate line.

They're essentially a list of something.

My manager's bullet points are about old and new business.

Everything you talk about at a meeting is either old business or new business.

"Old business" is everything that you talk about that was already discussed at a previous meeting - makes sense!

"New business" is everything that you are going to talk about that has not yet been discussed before.

Most business meetings begin with old business and end with new business.

Then, of course, the new business becomes the old business for the next meeting, if you still need to talk about it more.

My manager then asks each person to give a status report on his or her projects.

A "status report" is a short explanation about what someone has done on a project.

In this case, the manager is asking us to tell everyone else what we have done on our projects since the last time that we spoke.

Some departments have weekly meetings where everyone is supposed to give a status report.

At this meeting, each person takes turns giving a quick rundown while everyone else listens.

"To take turns" (always plural when used as a phrasal verb, as it is in this case) means to do something one person at a time, so that first one person does something, then another, and then another until everyone in the group has finished.

In a large meeting, you have to take turns talking; you can't all talk at the same time.

Sometimes husbands and wives take turns washing the dishes, meaning that one night he does it, and the next night she does it.

That's not true in my house; I do the dishes every night.