Your Call

When there's a decision to be made, there are expressions that affirm who does and doesn't have the right to make that decision. The examples for your decision and not your decision are listed below.


CEO: The company lost a lot of money last year. Should we fire 1,000 employees to recover the losses?

Answer
a. It's your decision.
b. It's your call.
c. It's up to you.


Cleaning Lady: I think the company should get a large bank loan and focus on our next product line.

Answer
a. It's not your decision.
b. It's not up to you.
c. You're overstepping your bounds.
d. You don't have the authority to make that decision.

Decision Making

To Use / Exercise / Have Common Sense means to make the same reasonable decisions that a normal, logical person under normal circumstances would be expected to make. Common sense is often discussed in the negative, i.e. when somebody acted with a lack of it and the action ended badly.

Example:
#1) Why did you throw rocks at a beehive? Don't you have any common sense?
#2) The man yelled at a policeman. After he is released from prison, he will exercise more common sense.
#3) He rode a motorcycle without a helmet and was paralyzed in a crash. He didn't use common sense.
#4) Anyone with good common sense can run a business.



To Think Things Through means thinking about the consequences of an action before taking it. Again, it's often used in the negative when we're aware that it didn't happen.

Example:
#1) He obviously didn't think things through because now his girlfriend's sister is pregnant.
#2) When she got a tattoo of the devil on her face, she clearly hadn't thought things through.
#3) Before I make a decision, I need to sit calmly and think things through.


To Use Your Best Judgement means thinking about and making the best possible decision. It is often used as an imperative (an order to someone else).

Example:
#1) I won't tell you who to marry, but please use your best judgement.
#2) I can only use my best judgement when I'm not emotionally involved in the situation.



To Carefully Consider Something / To Consider Something Carefully means to make a decision logically, examining all of the details. It is the same as thinking carefully.

Example:
#1) I carefully considered their offer and finally decided that I would be happier working somewhere else.
#2) This isn't an easy decision and I have to consider it carefully.

I Always Get My Way

To get / have one's way means to want something out of a situation. It usually has to be agreed to by someone else, perhaps an authority figure, so the person who wants it doesn't have total control of the outcome.

Example:

#1) They always let their daughter have her way and it's turning her into a spoiled child.

#2) You can't always get your way in this life, so stop complaining.

#3) I wanted to transfer to a new office in the company, but I didn't get my way and stayed in the old office.

#4) My parents didn't want me to travel abroad, but I earned my own money and finally got my way by paying for the trip myself .

Word Up

The word "word" is most commonly used as a noun, but it can also be used as a verb. To Word  means to make an arrangement words to form a phrase/sentence. There is also the verb to reword / rephrase, which means to word a phrase differently than you had. And wording refers to how a phrase is worded within a phrase. To choose one's words is a synonym of to word.

Examples:

#1) He worded the sentence strangely because he wanted the meaning to be vague.

#2) Is there another way I can word this sentence?

#3) She stopped speaking and quickly reworded the sentence to make herself look innocent.

#4) He reworded some sentences in the report to give more information.

#5) Would you like to rephrase that last sentence?

#6) Let me rephrase that.

#7) The wording in his letter was very unclear.

#8) The wording is precise in most court documents.

#9) Lawyers have to choose their words carefully in a court case.

#10) I have to say something important it and I should choose my words carefully.