Could you bring the check with coffee? We're running late.
This does not imply that the person speaking and the person/people with him are late for some event. However, the speaking person believes that under the expected conditions (traffic, speed limit, distance to travel, etc) that the speaker and those with him will possibly be late for the event.
I'm running late.
Yes, this could mean "I expected to leave to go to the movie five minutes ago, but if I drive fast, I think I will be there on time."
We're running out of time.
Used for some dramatic event with a clear deadline such as a time bomb getting ready to explode or a timed test at school.
We're running short on time.
This idiomatic expression uses on, instead of of.
This phrase is used for less dramatic events or for events where there is more time remaining, than the previous phrase. For example, if the time bomb had just reached the one minute mark, this would be fine. If the time bomb was near fifteen seconds, I would use "out of time."
We're running 10 minutes over.
This is correct, but may not mean what you intend. Suppose you were in a meeting that was scheduled from 2:00 to 3:00. If it is 3:10 and the meeting is not over (ended), then this phrase would be good.
"It's 10 minutes overtime. or We're 10 minutes overtime."?
Overtime as a single word, means something different.
So, "It's 10 minutes overtime," might be the answer to "Hey John, how far is the game into the fourth quarter?" (basketball).
It could also answer the question "Hey James, you are only scheduled to work until 6:00, what are you still doing here?" (employment).
Our hope has diminished.
Nothing wrong here. We use the word diminished with emotions often, particularly when the diminishing emotion is positive. When things are getting better, though, we might not be as likely to say, "Our despair has diminished", instead saying something more like, "Our despair has lifted."
Please diminish your voice.
Definitely not. As individuals, we lower our voices, not diminish them. That said, I think it would be okay to talk about crowd noise diminishing. We walked away from Times Square, and the voices diminished. I wouldn't have any problem with that sentence.
Our sugar supplies have diminished.
You may notice I took the liberty of substituting storage with supplies. Storage doesn't diminish, but supplies can. That said, my revised sentence seems to have a very formal register. I would never say that in my own kitchen, but an executive in a chocolate factory might: "Our sugar supplies are diminished; if the trucks don't get here with a new shipment soon, we'll be forced to shut down the production line."
The flooding has diminished in our area.
This is a tricky one. It seems grammatical, but I don't like it – probably for idiomatic reasons. I think I would say instead, "The flooding has receded in our area", which is a more descriptive word, and one my ears are used to hearing being used with flooding.
Diminished means, "to make or become less," but your question brings up an interesting point: that it can sound very awkward when applied to the wrong thing, such as misery, or flooding, or the volume of our music.
Best Answer
Hindsight is a complex word because of the way it is commonly used.
It is important to understand the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20", because it is the most common usage of the word, and that meaning is almost always implied when the word is used alone. "20/20" is a 'perfect' score on a vision test, and is used here to mean both insight and understanding. Hindsight is 20/20 because events always seem obvious and simple when you reflect on what has already happened. It is also used as a reminder that foresight is difficult and complex.
Because of this, "Hindsight" is often used when discussing an action that should have been taken, especially if the consequences are much more obvious now. For instance, someone undergoing a painful dentist appointment might remark "In hindsight, I should have flossed my teeth."
Your example about Steve Jobs doesn't quite work, for a few reasons.
There are three ideas here:
Steve Jobs builds things he believes are great. (Since there are many things, we want to use the plural for believe and it's here.)
People will understand his ideas and products later. (We can group the ideas and products together because they are both "his")
[Steve Jobs' decisions will make sense] in hindsight.
To improve this sentence, we want to make it clear that we are talking about one thing - not things, ideas, and products. It should also be clear that the people who understand later were confused at the beginning.
If we use the definition of "hindsight" to mean something that was only obvious later, we might say:
By saying his decisions were shocking, we establish why people thought they were not genius.
We could say "only later" instead of "in hindsight" here, and it would mean nearly the same thing. However, there is a slight implication when we use "hindsight" that the answer could not have been known at the time, because we do not share Steve's genius.