Expressions for Availability

So far in this lesson on expressions in common situations we’ve talked about.

Keep an eye on and out of hand.

Now we’re going to look at another situation moving to another place.

OK so you’re moving to another city and you don’t need a lot of stuff in your house that you have now.

The one you’re living in now so you’ve decided to give it away your stuff to whoever asks for it first.

So if you move to a new house where you buy a new house sometimes your old stuff you want to get new stuff so you want to leave it behind.

Maybe the sofa the pots and pans pots and pans are what you used to cook this stuff.

You don’t want to take to the new house.

You want to get brand new stuff but it’s still useful.

Maybe somebody wants it.

Maybe you’d like to give it away for free to your friends.

Well that’s possible.

OK so that’s the situation.

What expression can we use to get it across to announce it to our friends.

Let’s say I’m going to make a post on social media.

That’s the best way to let a lot of people know something.

Right.

Maybe it’s Facebook maybe it’s Instagram maybe it’s whatever you use maybe as we chat maybe it’s line.

I don’t know whatever you use whatever you use you’re going to post make a post.

You could say this to a person.

Sure.

But it’s better if it’s said to a whole group of people.

All your friends.

All right.

So my sofa my sofa.

You could say my sofa at the old place at the or my old place is now the expression up for grabs if anybody needs it.

Or we could say once at my sofa is up for grabs ups I wrote is here my bad.

If if anybody needs it if anybody wants it then what does that mean.

Well it’s sort of like I.

They’re all my friends over there and I throw my sofa to them.

Why throw my sofa out.

I don’t want it anybody want it.

Whoever reaches up and grabs it and takes it.

They’re the one who gets my sofa.

They grab Remember we learned grab before grab means to get to take like that but saying that you want it is kind of the same as reaching out and doing that and grabbing it with your hand.

It’s kind of the same.

So we use up for grabs when something is available to anyone to take.

Could be a sofa could be physically grabbing something.

It could also be for example for a position.

So this one is somebody is going to say Oh yeah.

Me me me me me I want it.

I want the sofa.

Me me me me me.

Someone might say dibs.

Dibs.

Dibs on the sofa.

Dibs on the sofa.

Dibs.

That means I claim that it’s an informal expression.

I claim that sofa that’s my sofa.

The first person.

OK you got it.

Because it’s up for grabs but we can use this expression up for grabs for example in maybe a political race two people running for the presidency.

They want to get it.

It’s up for grabs.

We don’t know who’s going to win.

Often we describe situations as up for grabs when we have no idea who’s going to win.

So for example there are two teams playing in a championship final right.

Maybe it’s the World Cup or whatever and they’re equally matched.

We really don’t know if this team is going to win or this team if it’s not equal and this team is way better than this team then we probably won’t say it.

But if it’s pretty much equal we’ll say I don’t know who’s going to win this year it’s really up for grabs.

It’s really up for grabs.

So that’s how it’s used.

That’s how it’s used and DBS is used to claim things in a kind of informal way.

People will just say dibs Debs or dibs on that.

Dibs on that very common expression up for grabs.