to talk shop
10
6.7
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
hablar de trabajo
- Dad, no one wants to talk shop.
- want to talk shop
- just talk shop
- come here to talk shop
It's not too comfortable to sit around and talk shop this way.
- It's not too comfortable to sit around and talk shop this way.
- I want to talk shop and have a good time and just, you know, that's it.
- We're going to get to the car, go have some chat, talk shop, have some food and looking forward to meeting him one-on-one.
- George Tanner Fox, like you guys talk shop.
- Dom's ready to talk shop because obviously he's AR word is too.
Examples
-
So having a chance to sit down and talk shop with you is a real treat for me and I want it to be for the viewers as well.
-
At the party, everyone wanted to enjoy the night instead of just talking shop about work.
-
You take a seat with your friends, you hang out, you talk shop, right?
-
It's not too comfortable to sit around and talk shop this way.
-
I love it when you talk shop.
-
We'll talk shop another time.
-
Listen, I know you must be busy, but if you find the time, maybe we could have a drink and talk shop.
-
I showed him a few tricks, we talked shop for a little bit.
-
I came backstage to talk shop with the lighting designer.
Fiction book (1996) -
After all, it wasn't often that he could talk shop with someone outside Starfleet.
Fiction book (1992)
How Work-Focused
- Informal
10
6.7
- Informal
269
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'talk' (to discuss) and 'shop' (a workplace) make the basic sense 'talk about work' directly inferable, so a learner who knows both words can grasp the core meaning. However, the pragmatic nuance (doing so in social settings where it’s irrelevant) and the lexicalized use of 'shop' to mean 'work topics' make the full idiomatic sense not completely predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
The verb talk shop may come from the image of workers who still talk about their job inside a small shop or workshop when they meet outside work. That's why it now means 'to talk about work' when people are together socially.