Jiaying Hello and welcome to The English We Speak. I’m Jiaying…
Neil … and I’m Neil. Hi, Jiaying. Have you seen any biscuits around here? I’m really hungry!
Jiaying No, sorry. There aren’t any biscuits here. Maybe you should try looking in the kitchen rather than in the meeting room?
Neil Well, I’m only looking in here because Rob promised to leave some biscuits on the table!
Jiaying Pfff! Yeah, right! That’ll be the day!
Neil Oh, have I got the wrong day? Did he say he would leave the biscuits on another day? I didn’t miss them, did I?!
Jiaying No, Neil – calm down! I said ‘that’ll be the day’. We use this expression to say that we don’t think something will happen. I was trying to say that Rob would never leave biscuits – he’d eat them.
Neil Ahh that makes sense. Yeah, Rob does like his biscuits. I thought it was strange he was leaving some in the meeting room. But what happened to them?
Jiaying Well, we can talk more about this mystery after these examples.
Examples He said he was finally going to apologise! That’ll be the day!
You think you’re going to beat me at Monopoly? You never have and never will! That’ll be the day!
I’m not speaking to her because she forgot my birthday again! That’ll be the day when she actually remembers!
Jiaying You’re listening to The English We Speak from BBC Learning English, and we’re talking about the expression ‘that’ll be the day’. We use this expression to say that we don’t believe something is likely or will happen.
Neil I think I understand what happened to the biscuits. I misread the text. It wasn’t from Rob, it was from Roy! I wasn’t wearing my glasses!
Jiaying I wish for once you’d remember to wear your glasses. That’ll be the day!
Neil Very good! And oh no – I replied to the message! I wrote: ‘Great – thanks for leaving the biscuits in the meeting room!’ – but I accidentally sent the message to Rob!
Jiaying Oh no! You told Rob exactly where to find them. Well, you never know. He might have left you some in kitchen.
Neil** That’ll be the day**! I once saw Rob eat an entire packet of biscuits in seconds. There’s no chance there are any left!
Jiaying Oh well – never mind. Bye, Neil.
Neil Bye!