Call for

To “call for” something means to request other people to take action.

Today's story: George Floyd protests
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Call for

Today we’re going to talk about the phrasal verb “call for.” You heard that the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are calling for protesters to remain peaceful. What does “call for” mean in this case?

They are requesting action; specifically, you are requesting other people take action. When you call for something, you are requesting that someone do something. It is often used in the public sphere—in government, big organizations, or big groups of people.

When the families of the victims of police violence call for protests to remain peaceful, they are requesting that people not engage in violence. After the death of George Floyd, people were calling for the officer to be arrested and charged with murder. He was quickly charged with murder and will stand trial. But the other three offices have not been charged—at least not when I’m recording this lesson, and people are calling for those officers to be charged as well.

Why would be people call for them to be charged? Why would people request that other officers be charged with a crime in this case? They stood by and watched as their fellow officer killed this unarmed man by kneeling on his neck. There are calls for those three officers to be charged—and I think they will be.

The overall theme of the protests is that people are calling for justice and they are calling for additional protection against this type of thing happening in the future. A large part of the frustration—desperation, even—is that people have been calling for these things for a long time, and these terrible events keep happening.

All eyes will be on police chiefs, mayors, and other authority figures. Depending on how they handle the situation, people may call for them to resign. That’s a very common use of the term “call for”: to call for someone to resign.

You can call for an investigation. If someone has gone wrong, typically at some level of government, people might call for an investigation: they might request that an investigation start to determine what happened.

We in the US have high unemployment right now; about 15 percent of the people who want to work are currently without a job, at least temporarily. And in many places, there are moratoriums on evictions. A moratorium is like a pause. And eviction is what your landlord, your building owner, does when you don’t pay the rent: they kick you out. So there is a moratorium on evictions. That means that in these tough economic times, landlords are not allowed to kick people out of their homes for not paying rent. Some people are calling for those moratoriums to be extended, since the economic situation has not improved in a lot of places in the US. They are calling for an extension to the pause on evictions.

The key to keep in mind is that you are requesting an action. You don’t just call for something you want. You call for something that another person or group of people can implement or do.

What else can you call for? You can call for action; you can call for change; you can call for reform; you can call for calm; you can call for accountability and justice, things like that. All of those are possible because they can be the result of an action.

JR’s song of the week

Today’s song of the week is “Infinite Space” by Young Mister, a.k.a. Steve Fiore. He said the song was inspired by a podcast about extraterrestrial life—that’s life on other planets. He wrote the song about this idea he had that the only beings he would truly identify with would be aliens—and he might never meet them. “What if I never reach you?” he asks in the song, “I know you’re somewhere out there in the infinite space.”

You can always find your song of the week on Spotify by searching the term, “Plain English Playlist.” Thanks to JR as always for selecting the song of the week.

See you next time!

Whether you’re still stuck at home or you’re starting to venture out again, this is a great time to practice English. And our new web site makes it easier than ever to do that; just visit PlainEnglish.com/join and select the membership option that’s best for you. Remember, there will always be a free option.

We’ll be back on Monday with another Plain English lesson. Stay safe everybody!

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Story: George Floyd protests