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April 18, 2025 4 mins

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases PAST THEIR PRIME and PRIME TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase past their prime. When you say someone is past their prime, it means they peaked at whatever they do well and now they aren't as good at it. We usually use this to talk about athletes, a professional athlete. Often when they are in their 30s, they start to not be as good at the sport as they used to be. And then we might say when they're 35 or 36, that they are past their prime. It's not a nice phrase, is it? I do not look forward to the day where I'm teaching a class and some parent says, Bob, that guy is past his prime, it's time for him to retire. I don't think I'm anywhere close yet, but that would not be a nice thing to hear. But often used to talk about professional athletes when they're in their 30s. It's common to read a news article or hear someone on TV say that they are past their prime. Again, not very flattering, not very kind.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is prime time. This is kind of an older phrase. This refers to TV shows that are on between 8 and 10 or 7 and 11. There's a bit of a... There's a... There's a couple different ideas as to what it means, but it means the time where people normally, I guess, used to watch TV. Now there's streaming and YouTube and all kinds of other things to do from 7 to 11. But prime time meant a TV show that was on between 7 and 11 at night. So for me it's usually game shows from 7 to 8. So there's Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. And then at 8 o'clock I don't often sit down to watch a TV show anymore. I might watch a Blue Jays game, but those are on at prime time sometimes as well. They start at 7 or 7:30 at night. Anyways, prime time, the best time to get a lot of viewers to watch something.

So to review. When someone is past their prime, it means that they were good at something and now they're not as good at it because they're getting older, they've peaked and now they're kind of going downhill. And then prime time would be any TV show that's on between 8 and 10 or 7 and 11, whatever you choose.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from. Know that as for your example of the shirt with the hole in it, Bob, if it were one of your favorite shirts, you could possibly wear a sweater over it in a pinch. Assuming of course that the weather is right for a sweater and how many holes it has, how big they are and where. I know that was just an example and as always, a really good one from you. Thank you so much, Bob. You're awesome in so many ways. Have a great day.

And my response, yeah, I've done that from time to time. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Yeah, I went and found what is my favorite shirt. It's too bad that shirts get. The shirt is past its prime there. I could use the example as well. It's too bad when things get old. This doesn't have holes in it, but it's actually. It's just starting to wear out a little bit where you can't see. So I can't wear it unless I wear a sweater or a top like this over top of it.

So anyways, the lawn chairs are back out. You might have noticed that in a previous video. We put them back out a week or two ago. This has just become a beautiful spot to sit in the spring, summer and fall. For Jen and I. It's shady in the morning right now. It's about 9am so it's nice. We put them away for the winter and now they're back. We've also removed one row

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