Waffle on

Feifei Hello and welcome to The English We Speak. I’m Feifei.

Rob
And I ‘m Rob. Feifei, feeling hungry?

Feifei
Rob, they smell amazing!

Rob Almost there. We’re having a special treat today - waffles!

Feifei Rob is making waffles: those lovely, crispy little cakes with raised squares on the surface.

Rob Absolutely! My favourite. But what are we going to put on them?

Feifei Oh that’s simple: strawberries and syrup. What about you?

Rob OK, I’m not so sure. I mean, I used to always love them with honey and bananas. But they do taste amazing with melted chocolate. Or… with cream. You know, I recently tried one with peanut butter: not a good experience. I guess strawberries would be worth trying… Or mango. But only if the mangoes are fresh…

Feifei Rob?

Rob Yes?

Feifei Can you stop waffling on?

Rob Ah, very clever. Perfect time to use that phrase! I do need to stop waffling on, don’t I?

Feifei Yes, please. To ‘waffle on’ means to talk and talk without saying anything very useful or interesting.

Rob
I am sometimes guilty of that. Let ‘s hear a few more examples.

Examples I think I did really badly in the interview. I wasn’t sure how to answer the questions, so I just waffled on.

Meetings with Frank are frustrating. He always waffles on about unimportant things. Someone needs to have a word with him.

I used to find her blog really interesting and inspiring, but these days she just waffles on about her pet tortoise.

Feifei There we are. To waffle on. At least we don’t waffle on in this programme, do we Rob?

Rob Well, I must admit that sometimes people have said I do talk rather a lot, especially when it’s about travel or languages… which reminds me I really should book my next holiday… I’ve been considering Croatia, though I…

Feifei Rob?

Rob Ah. Am I waffling on?

Feifei I’m afraid so.

[‘Ping’ sound of a microwave]

Rob
Ooh, it ‘s waffle time!

Feifei Great. Hopefully these tasty waffles will keep you quiet for a while.

Rob Are you saying the waffles will stop me waffling on?

Feifei Yup! Now, enough talk… Oh, these waffles are delicious.

Rob Not bad, eh?!

Feifei Bye.

Rob Bye.