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English Phrase: Put your back out
It’s a very painful situation if you put your back out.
You can’t sleep properly, walking is a challenge and going up and down stairs is torture.
When you put your back out, you strain your back or otherwise hurt it.
If you’re lucky, it’s only a strained muscle.
If you’re unlucky, it could be a slipped disk.
I remember when I was a high school teacher here in Wakayama, I put my back out while carrying a new desktop computer into my then apartment.
Picking up and carrying the box was fine.
When I tried to put it down on the floor, that’s when I strained my back.
Oh, my God!
My spine looked like an S-curve for about two weeks.
At work, I had to hang on to walls and climbing the stairs took so much time that I had to leave the teacher’s room early for classes.
Naturally, everyone laughed at me and made jokes.
One older Japanese English teacher who had been to the States called me Speedy Gonzales after the Old Pat Boone song of the same name.
There’s another way to use this little phrase, though, that has nothing to do with pain.
You can use it to refuse an offer of help politely.
In the future, you may be carrying a large box containing a brand-new desktop computer into your home when someone offers to lend a helping hand.
You can then politely refuse by saying, “Oh no, that’s OK. I got it. Don’t put your back out.”
However, and I’m speaking from experience here, you may want to think twice about refusing.
A little bother to someone else is better than you physically putting your back out.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 79.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.