American Classics, Where We Teach You American English, Heard at the movies in 1967.

Movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was rare at the time because it dealt with interracial marriage.

In 1967 the United States Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage.

In the movie, Matt and Christina Drayton are not immediately accepting of their daughter's wish to marry a black man.

Their daughter's boyfriend, John Prentice, is the first to tell Matt Drayton about the plan.

Listen for the words.

Break this gently.

We flew back to San Francisco to see if you or Mrs Straighten would have any objections if we got married.

I had the stupid idea that maybe there was some way too.

Break this gently.

What do you think?

Break this gently means is it to kindly reveal unexpected information or to stop talking about a difficult subject?

Maybe there was some way too break.

This gently break this gently is to kindly reveal unexpected information.

When someone says, Break it to me gently, they're asking to receive difficulty information in a gentle way.

In the end, Matt and Christina Drayton did support the marriage of their daughter and John Prentice, and that's English at the movies.