Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, with “get his ear” in particular: Will there be somebody who can get his ear and convince him not to do this?

My comments:

Who is he?

Never mind. He’s about to do something stupid, apparently, and the speaker asks whether there’s somebody who can get a word in his ear to stop him.

Here, to get his ear means to get a word in his ear. “Getting someone’s ear” is a metaphor, not to be taken literally. In other words, we’re not about to get his ear and squeeze it or do anything like that. Rather, we want to get a word in his ear, the ear’s function being to listen to and to hear.

So what the speaker wants is someone who can get this man to listen to and hear some advice.

And, hopefully, to heed that advice.

Again, whoever he is and whatever that advice is, all you have to remember is that to “get his ear”, you need someone who “have his ear”, someone who can “get a word in his ear” – to have him listen to and hear a word and heed it.

That “word”, of course, can be any piece of advice or warning.

In our example, he’s going to something unthinkable and we need somebody who’s close to him to tell him not to do it.

All right, no more ado. Let’s read a few media examples to drive the point home:

1. New boss Ten Hag faced the media on Monday in Bangkok ahead of his first pre-season game and the former Ajax chief was candid. The United chief was asked about his club captain for next season and he confirmed Harry Maguire was continuing in the role.

“Harry Maguire is the captain,” stated Ten Hag. And after he was asked to explain his decision, he added: “Of course, I have to get to know all the players and it takes time.

“But he is an established captain for a few years. And he has achieved a lot of success, so I don’t doubt about this issue.”

It was a bold move and an honest assessment from the Man Utd boss, but one which may come back to haunt him, according to former Liverpool star Steve Nicol.

The ESPN pundit thinks Ten Hag has only afforded the press with ammunition for later in the season.

“When you are the coach and you are at the press conference, you don’t answer anybody’s question,” Nicol told ESPN. “You don’t, you tell them what you want them to know.

“You don’t answer questions, you don’t be open and honest. He has shown a little bit of naivety here, answering questions openly and honestly. He has got no obligation to tell them anything other than whatever he fancies telling them. Keep your cards close to your chest, tell them nothing, get through your press conference and move on.

“All they are doing is loading their guns with ammo, so three games into the season it’s ‘Why did you make Harry Maguire captain when you knew he was rubbish last year?’

“I am sick of saying it, keep your mouth closed, get through the press conference, tell them nothing because it is easy. Somebody is going to have to have a word in his ear, because it is going to come back and bite him that’s for sure.”

- Erik ten Hag’s press conference comments show ‘naivety’ and they will ‘come back and bite him’, TeamTalk.com, July 14, 2022.

2. Joe Scarborough pursed his lips and jotted down a few notes at his desk. It was 6 a.m. on Friday, seven and a half hours after a diminished President Biden had gingerly stepped off the debate stage, and the host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC was about to deliver a painful message to viewers of television’s most reliable redoubt of Biden support.

“I love Joe Biden,” Mr. Scarborough began as the cameras flipped on in his home studio in Maine. “I think his presidency has been an unqualified success.”

But.

“He spent much of the night with his mouth agape and his eyes darting back and forth,” the anchor said. “He couldn’t fact-check anything Donald Trump said. He missed one layup after another after another.” Now, he concluded, “is the last chance for Democrats to decide whether this man we’ve known and loved for a very long time is up to the task of running for president of the United States.”

This was no mere act of punditry. Mr. Biden, 81, is a skeptic of the news media, but Mr. Scarborough is among a tiny group of commentators who have his ear. The president regularly speaks with the anchor and is a devoted watcher of “Morning Joe,” a show that has defended him against all manner of attacks.

No more. And Mr. Scarborough’s defection mirrored that of other longtime Biden media allies who, often in elegiac and pained tones, urged the president to consider dropping out in the wake of his shaky performance in Thursday’s debate against former President Donald J. Trump.

Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who speaks frequently with Mr. Biden, wrote that he had wept watching the president. “Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election,” he said. Evan Osnos, Mr. Biden’s biographer and one of the few journalists granted extensive access to him, called the president “clearly a person who was diminished from where he was” four years ago. And on CNN, the Democratic analyst Van Jones delivered a soliloquy brimming with emotion, full of poignancy, defiance and regret.

“I just want to speak from my heart,” Mr. Jones said, minutes after the debate ended, as he and his fellow panelists marveled at the disastrous nature of Mr. Biden’s showing. “He’s a good man. He loves his country. He’s doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight to restore the confidence of the country and of the base, and he failed to do that.”

Mr. Jones paused. “There is time for this party to figure out a different way forward.”

- One by One, Biden’s Closest Media Allies Defect After the Debate, NYTimes.com, June 28, 2024.

3. As incoming White House chief of staff, one of Susie Wiles’ vexing challenges will be policing the buffet line of powerful interests who want something from Donald Trump.

It’s a world she knows well. During Trump’s first presidency, she lobbied for many of them.

Trump was first elected on a pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington. But his transactional approach to the presidency instead ushered in a lobbying boom that showered allies, including Wiles, with lucrative contracts, empowered wealthy business associates and stymied his agenda after his administration was ensnared in a series of influence-peddling scandals.

Now, as Trump prepares to return to power, his victory is likely to embolden those who think they can get his ear, raising the prospect that his second administration could face many of the same perils as his first. That will test the ability of Wiles to manage a growing number of high-powered figures – including Trump’s children, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and billionaires like Elon Musk – who will not be dependent on her for access to him.

The appointment of a former lobbyist to such an important job “bodes very poorly for what we are about to see from the next Trump administration,” said Craig Holman, himself a registered lobbyist for the government watchdog group Public Citizen. “This time around, Trump didn’t even mention ‘draining the swamp.’ ... He’s not even pretending.”

In a statement, Brian Hughes, a spokesman from the Trump transition effort, rejected any suggestion that Wiles’ past as a lobbyist would make her susceptible to pressure.

“Susie Wiles has an undeniable reputation of the highest integrity and steadfast commitment to service both inside and outside government,” Hughes said. “She will bring this same integrity and commitment as she serves President Trump in the White House, and that is exactly why she was selected.”

- Trump’s incoming chief of staff is a former lobbyist, The Associated Press, November 21, 2024.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣）