Hello everyone, welcome to ForB's English lesson video.
I'm Kevin, and for today's video, we are going to start by looking at a sample sentence.
He is sitting on the fence about which college to go to.
Do you know what this sentence means?
Sitting on the fence about which college to go to.
Can you guess the meaning?
So this sentence means that this person hasn't decided which college to go to.
That he has two, or maybe more choices of colleges,
but he can't decide, he hasn't chosen which one to go to.
So the expression "to be sitting on the fence", or "to be on the fence",
comes from the image of a fence, a wooden or metal structure that can divide land.
So on one side of the fence is one choice, and on the other side of the fence is the other choice.
If you are sitting on the fence, you haven't decided which choice to make.
So this is a pretty common expression for situations where we are talking about someone
who hasn't made a choice yet.
However, we tend to use it only for more important or bigger choices,
so if my friends and I are trying to decide what kind of pizza to have,
but we can't choose...sausage or cheese,
"we are sitting on the fence about the pizza" that sounds a little strange.
Most people would never say that!
Instead, like I said, choosing a college is a big decision in someone's life;
someone's having trouble making the choice.
We could use this expression for that situation.
However, a lot of times when you hear this expression
it might have a bit of a negative feeling connected with it.
That maybe we want the person to make a choice,
we are pushing them to decide.
But they still haven't chosen, so we are a little upset or frustrated with the person.
So don't be surprised when you hear this expression if the person sounds a little angry.
Again, not always, but often it can have that negative feeling.
Finally, we can also use this expression to talk about our own lack of choice.
Usually, however, this will be in a response to someone's question.
So for example, maybe a friend asks me "Kevin are you going to take the new job?"
I might say "I'm on the fence."
So I'm showing I haven't decided yet.
So "be on the fence", "be sitting on the fence",
like I said, quite common for talking about important decisions or big decisions
where someone hasn't chosen yet,
but be a little careful, it can have a little bit of a negative feeling sometimes.
Thank you very much for watching our video.
Remember if you would like to see more English lesson videos
please take a look at our channel, we have a lot of videos there.
Thanks very much, we'll see you next time.