 10. English Phrases with the word WHAT from EspressoEnglish.net 1. What's the catch? Say this phrase in response when something sounds too good to be true and you suspect there's a hidden problem. For example, if your friend says he'll sell you his car for just $200, you could say, What's the catch? Because you are wondering if there's something wrong with the car or if your friend wants you to do some favor in return. 2. What's the drill? This phrase means, What are the rules and procedures for doing this? Imagine you need to buy a new computer for your office, but you don't know exactly what the process is for doing this at your company. You can say to a colleague, I need to put in an order for a new computer. What's the drill? And your colleague can then explain how to do it. 3. What do you say? This phrase is often pronounced very fast, so it sounds like, What do you say? We use this phrase to ask someone else, What is your answer? or What is your decision? For example, you tell your friend, I'm going to go shopping on Saturday and hit the beach on Sunday. I'd love for you to join me. What do you say? You are asking what she thinks about your plan and if she would like to join you. 4. What goes around comes around. This saying means, If you do good things to other people, good things will happen to you. If you do bad things to other people, bad things will happen to you. 5. What do I owe you? This is an informal way to say, How much do I need to pay? Imagine you go out to a bar and you have 3 or 4 drinks. When you're ready to leave, you ask the bartender, What do I owe you? You want to know the total amount of money that you need to pay. 6. What's eating him? or What's eating her? Say this if a person appears to be angry or upset and you want to ask another person what is bothering that first person who is in a bad mood? For example, let's say your brother looks very upset and preoccupied but he won't talk to you about it. You could ask your sister, Hey, what's eating him? To try to get more information about what is bothering your brother. 7. What are you getting at? or What are you driving at? What do these questions mean? What are you implying? or What's the final point that you want to express? You can use these when talking to a person who is giving you information but isn't directly saying the main point. These questions encourage the other person to tell you directly what they want to say. 8. What's done is done? This saying expresses the truth that what is in the past is final, it can't be changed. If your friend is regretting a decision he made in the past and wishing it was different, you can tell him what's done is done to emphasize the fact that the past can't be changed. 9. What's with? and What's the deal with? These questions mean what's the problem with or what's the situation or status of. Imagine you try to use the copy machine at your office but it doesn't work. You could then ask your co-worker, What's with the copy machine? Is it broken? The expression what's with is typically only used for problems. The expression what's the deal with can be used for problems or for asking about the status. If you're doing a project together with other students in your English school and you want to ask about the status of part of the project, you can say, What's the deal with the pictures we needed to print out? Has anyone taken care of that yet? 10. What's up? What's cooking? What's shaking? What's new? What's happening? These are multiple ways of greeting a person and asking about new or current events in their life. The typical response to any of these questions is, not much, and then you can add a detail about something you are currently doing or something you have recently done. For example, Hi John, what's cooking? Not much, I'm just finishing up my English homework. Hey Laura, what's up? Oh, not much, I've been getting everything ready for my trip next week. If you'd like to learn more spoken English, my everyday English speaking course will help you. It teaches you English phrases in context from conversations.