ESL Podcast 316 – Business Emails and Abbreviations

Dear Sam,

I am writing to follow up on our phone conversation re: the upcoming meeting. We’ve made good headway in our planning, having settled many of the arrangements, e.g., the date, time, and venue¹. However, we still need to decide on the agenda², i.e., who will speak, in what order, and for what length of time. Fortunately, we have free rein³ to set up the meeting as we see fit, so it’s just a matter of hammering out the details before we can invite the participants, book the meeting room, etc.

I suggest that we call a second meeting and invite some of the people who will be involved in the meeting: Adam, Lin, Toshi, Cecelia, et al. With everyone there, we should be able to come to a decision about the remaining issues. If this is in line with your thinking, I’ll send out an email ASAP.

Let me know what you think.

Luis

P.S. We also need to start planning the annual meeting, but we can wait until this one is wrapped up before we start on that.


Script⁴ by Dr. Lucy Tse

1 venue   

n.犯罪地点，审判地，管辖地，发生地点，集合地点

参考例句：

• The hall provided a venue for weddings and other functions.大厅给婚礼和其他社会活动提供了场所。
• The chosen venue caused great controversy among the people.人们就审判地点的问题产生了极大的争议。

2 agenda   

n.议事日程，记事册

参考例句：

• We now proceed to the next item on the agenda.我们现在着手讨论下一项议题。
• If there is no objection,the agenda is adopted.如果没有意见，议程就通过了。

3 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

4 script   

n.剧本，广播稿；文字体系；笔迹，手迹

参考例句：

• It's easy to identify his script.他的笔迹容易辨认。
• The script is massaged into final form.这篇稿子经过修改已定稿。