Learn the English Phrases "past their prime" and "prime time"
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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 thirties, they start to not be as good at the sport as they used to be. And then we might say when they're thirty five or thirty six 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, ah, 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.

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 eight and 10 or seven and 11. There's a bit of a very, there's a couple different ideas as to what it means, but it means the time where people normally watch

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 eight and 10 or seven 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. Um,

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

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 9:00 a.m. So it's nice. We put them away for the winter and Now they're back. We've also removed our

One row, one row of the little markers from the driveway. We have to remove these at some point. The dogs were starting to knock them over, so it was time to...

to take them down. There's one or two in here that you might say are, oh, I think I put them away. There's one that's past its prime. It's not in very good shape anymore and it's time for it to be retired. Anyways, thanks for watching. We're having a beautiful spring day here. I hope you're having a nice day wherever you are and I'll see you in a few days with another short English lesson. Bye.

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.