Touch Base | Video Overview

Transcript

0:00 “Touch base” is one of the many idioms commonly used in English. Eva from QuillBot here to explain the meaning of this idiom and how to use it correctly.

0:10 To “touch base” means to briefly communicate with someone, most often with the intention of checking in on something. Some synonyms of “touch base” are “make contact with,” “get in touch with,” and “check in with.”

0:23 For example, if you’re making plans for the weekend with friends but need to confirm a meeting place later on, you could say, “Let’s touch base on Friday to decide where to meet.” This shows you’ll briefly contact them on Friday to finalize your plans.

0:37 Or, if at work, you’re collaborating with other teams on a project, you might say something like, “We should touch base with marketing today or tomorrow to see how they’re getting along.” This means you’ll get in touch with marketing to see what progress they’ve made on the project so far.

0:55 Here are some tips for using “touch base” correctly.

0:58 While “touch base” is often used in work and business contexts, it’s not generally used in formal or academic writing. For these contexts, a more formal synonym, like “communicate with,” may be more appropriate.

1:10 If you want to change the verb tense of “touch base,” conjugate “touch” as you usually would. For example, in the present continuous, you’d say “touching base.”

1:20 Check your spelling. “Touch base,” when used as a verb, is spelled as two separate words with a space between. The verb form of this idiom is never spelled as one word.

1:31 You can also use “touch base” as an adjective. In this form, the word should either have a space or be hyphenated between “touch” and “base.” This adjective is mostly used to describe a type of meeting, a “touch base meeting,” which is a short check-in between team members.