Devil Wears Prada and drawing the line

Hi. How are you? This is Guilherme with a brand new episode of the Inglês Diário podcast. Hope you are all doing great today. We are already in late June, and I have to say, it's getting quite cold here in Sorocaba! Perfect weather for a hot cup of coffee while we practice some English.

Today, we are going to use one of our new formats: the Pop Culture Scene! I love using movies to learn vocabulary because it creates an instant visual memory. I'm sure most of you have seen the movie The Devil Wears Prada—or in Portuguese, O Diabo Veste Prada. It’s an absolute classic.

If you remember the story, the main character, Andy, gets a job as an assistant to Miranda Priestly. And Miranda is basically the worst boss in the world. She is rude, she calls Andy at all hours of the night, and she wants impossible things—like getting the new Harry Potter book for her daughters before it is even published! But Andy, our main character, really wants to be a journalist, and she knows this job is a great opportunity. So, she decides to put up with Miranda's terrible behavior. Again: she decides to put up with Miranda's terrible behavior.

To put up with something. Put, P-U-T, up, with.

When you put up with something, you tolerate a difficult, annoying, or unpleasant situation without complaining. You don't like it, but you accept it. If you live next to a busy street or avenue, you put up with the traffic noise. If you have an old computer that crashes all the time, but you can't buy a new one, you just put up with it. In the movie, Andy puts up with Miranda’s ridiculous demands because she hopes it will help her career.

But as the story progresses, things get more and more toxic. Fast forward to the end of the movie: they are at a big fashion week in Paris and Miranda does something terrible: she betrays her most loyal colleague just to save her own job. When Andy sees this situation , she realizes she doesn't want to become a band, ruthless person like Miranda. That is her absolute limit. She finally draws the line.

To draw the line. Imagine you have a piece of chalk (or “giz"), and you draw a straight line on the ground. You look at the situation and say, "You can come this far, but you cannot cross this line." To draw the line means to set a strict boundary or limit. It means you define exactly what is acceptable and what is absolutely unacceptable. Andy could put up with working late, but she drew the line at hurting other people. She threw her cell phone into a fountain in Paris, turned her back, and walked away.

So, my question for you today is: Have you ever had a boss like Miranda Priestly? Maybe not as crazy, but maybe a little bit? What kind of crazy things did you have to put up with at your job? And at what point did you finally draw the line?

Leave a comment. See you next time, bye!