Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Call it a night/ Call it a day


"Call it a night" is more specific (used at night, of course) and "call it a day" is more general (used at any time of the day or night). It simply means to finish/ stop what you're doing, such as an activity or something you're working on. It could also be used metaphorically to mean stopping an activity/ project or job after a long period of time (longer than a day).

1. I've been working on the computer all evening. I think it's time to call it a night and get to bed.   

2. The party is over and we've seen the fireworks... let's call it a night.

3. After 12 years of playing for the French National soccer team, Zinedine Zidane decided to call it a day and retire from professional soccer. Now he's the advisor to Real Madrid.



4. I've already caught 12 big fish so I think I'm going to call it a day.

5. I wonder if Clint Eastwood is ever going to call it a day and retire from the movie making industry.

6 comments :

  1. I used this expression yesterday in the chat. It reminds me of another Law & Order SVU episode in which Olivia says to Fin: Let's call it a night?

    In this episode Fin was shot at the grocery store.

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  2. Yes... I saw you used this expression... perfectly and in the right context. I'm impressed. You "pick things up" quickly. You're a quick learner!

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  3. Nice, thanks!

    Have you ever thought about including some audio recordings to your posts so we can listen to the examples?

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  4. Hey Marcos,
    You know... I actually included an audio clip in this post:
    http://natively-speaking-comics.blogspot.com/2011/07/get-along-with-someone.html
    If you take a look you will notice that it's a text to speech voice... so it's automated, not real. I was testing out the idea of audio. I don't mind recording my own voice... it's just that I wanted the quality of the audio to be clear. I don't have a noise-cancelling microphone (and actually the netbook I work on doesn't have a microphone jack (only for headphones). I would have to use my wife's computer. Excuses, excuses....
    What I can tell you is that I am planning on doing weekly blog posts to help with correcting pronunciation, although I think I need to have a different blog to deal with that.

    I've been playing with idea where I want to illustrate the stress in words visually besides providing the audio. Something simple, but I think people will like it. I would also like to get some native speakers with different accents to participate, so people could choose from a few different accents... not only that, but I would also like to get some English learners to submit their sound files for correction, where I could put them up on my blog as examples and people could listen to them and learn from the wrongly pronounced words along with a visual representation of the corrections (it will make sense when I show you). Tons of ideas, but so little time!

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  5. Great! Today I've been thinking about it. I tried recording some sentences on my iPhone, but I didn't like the quality of the audio. I'll try with a studio mic as soon as I have a chance.

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  6. Thanks Marcos... that would be great.

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