Abide by
Today’s English expression is “abide by.” It’s a phrasal verb that we always use with an object and it generally means to obey or to follow something. You can abide by rules, abide by a decision, abide by a judgment. And that simply means we follow the rules, or we act in a way that respects a decision.
You don’t have to like the rules, but you do have to abide by them. That’s a tool in every parent’s toolkit. Kids don’t like the rules. That’s fine. You don’t have to like them. But you do have to follow the rules. You do have to abide by the rules.
You can abide by a decision. Those of us who work for larger companies, we have to abide by decisions all the time. As mere employees, we don’t get the chance to make all the decisions ourselves. We may not like the decisions the company makes, but we do have to abide by them. We have to behave in a way that respects the decision.
Here’s a real-life example for me. My company determined that we require all job applicants to send in a video of themselves answering questions before we can interview them. Some people liked that decision, other people thought that wasn’t a good idea. But we all have to abide by the decision, and now all job applicants submit video interviews before we do live interviews.
You can abide by a court judgment. If two parents are divorced, a court may determine which parent gets to see the kids on which days of the week, or for what percentage of time. The parents have to abide by the court’s judgment. They may not always like the decision of the family court, but they have to abide by the judgment because it’s the law. If the court says that the parents have to alternate weeks, then the parents have to abide by the judgment and alternate weeks spending time with their kids.
If Judge Judy hands down a decision, you have to abide by it. On the TV show “Judge Judy,” Judy Sheindlin isn’t a real judge and the proceedings are not real court proceedings. The people in the “cases” have agreed ahead of time to abide by Judge Judy’s decision. She is an arbitrator; her job is to settle disputes. The two parties with a dispute agreed that they would abide by Judge Judy’s decision, even if they don’t agree with it. And yes, they all know it’s not a real court, but they agree to abide by the decision anyway.
JR’s song of the week
It’s Thursday, so that means it’s time for JR’s song of the week. Today, he chose “Follow You” by the Imagine Dragons. This one was just released in March of this year. Frontman Dan Reynolds was on the verge of a divorce with his wife when they reconciled. He wrote “Follow You” after they got back together. He said he wanted it to show that love is realistic even if it’s not perfect. So thanks JR for that song this week.
See you next time!
And that’s all for today’s lesson on Thursday, August 12, 2021. I hope you enjoyed it; I hope you enjoyed learning some new English vocabulary today. We don’t often talk about the rightful owners of pets, or repair bills, or who splits the deposit on a car, and whatnot. It’s good to mix things up once in a while, right?
Speaking of mixing things up, our online lesson library is organized by category, so if you like lessons about television and movies, for example, you can find other similar lessons by visiting PlainEnglish.com/lessons. That’s where you can browse the whole catalog of 389 English lessons, and see everything organized by topic.
Coming up next week: Tokyo’s Olympic-sized disappointment. These Olympics were supposed to help Japan re-emerge on the global stage. Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out. We’ll talk about that next Monday on Plain English. See you then.
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