I have mentioned before that I’m a bit of an computer geek and that’s why I was interested to see this article about Google’s ‘Chrome’ web browser on the Reuters website. I have already tried it on my PC at work and found it really fast and easy to use. It works really well with all the online Google applications I use for maintaining this blog, too.
There was some really interesting business vocabulary in the article, too. The first expressions I would like to look at are in this paragraph:
The deal could expand the reach of Google’s fledgling product which lags behind browsers offered by Microsoft Corp and the Mozilla foundation in market share.
A ‘fledgling‘ is a young bird that is learning to fly but when we use the word as an adjective, it means ‘new’ or ‘lacking experience’. To ‘lag‘ means to move slowly or make slow progress so to ‘lag behind‘ in this situation means to be less advanced than the other products.
In the next paragraph, the author mentions the ‘terms‘ of the deal. We use ‘terms‘ to talk about the rules and requirements agreed on in the deal. We often use it together with the word ‘conditions‘.
There is an interesting phrase in the quote given by the Google representative:
“We are in the process of testing one such channel with Sony,”
When the word ‘channel‘ is used here, it refers to a way of making Chrome accessible to more people as mentioned in the paragraph before the quote.
There’s another really interesting expression slightly later on when the author mentions ‘striking deals‘ with other PC makers. To ‘strike a deal‘ means to agree on the terms and conditions of a deal. Here are some more ‘deal‘ expressions:
- to make a deal – to arrange a deal between two people or groups of people
- to close a deal – when a deal is agreed on and finalised
- to break a deal – to do something which is against the terms and conditions of a deal or to prevent a deal being made.
- a done deal – a plan that had been agreed on and will definitely happen
What’s your favourite web browser? Why?