Deal with

Deal with

“Deal With”

“Deal with” is a phrasal verb that we use when something needs to be handled, managed, or faced head-on. You can use this when you’re solving a problem, confronting a difficult person, or focusing on a specific issue. You’re dealing with it.

If you take an action to address something—it could be a small task or a big challenge—you can say you’re dealing with it. I’m going to give you three ways to use “deal with.”

Handling or managing a situation

The most common way we use “deal with” is when we’re talking about handling or managing a situation. This could be anything from fixing a small issue at work to solving a big personal problem. For example, if your car’s “check engine” light comes on, you might say, “I need to deal with this before our next long road trip.”

Here is something that requires your attention. It requires you to take action. The “check engine” light comes on. This could be a big problem, a small problem, or no problem at all. But you have to deal with it. You have to take it to a mechanic and possibly have some work done

If a coworker says, “I have a lot of emails to deal with,” she simply means she has a lot of emails in her inbox. And they require her attention and her action.

Now we all have—all of us? I don’t know. Many of us have tasks that we have to deal with, but we don’t want to deal with them right now. So a really common thing to say is: “I have to deal with this eventually.” That means, at some point in the future, I will have to turn my attention to this. Not yet! But at some time in the future. I can’t ignore it forever.

Here’s a personal example. There’s a piece of software I use for forms on PlainEnglish.com. I’m not going to say the name of the company, but I’m trying to switch away from this company’s software and go to their competitors. But this means I have to re-create and re-design all the forms on PlainEnglish.com. And there are a lot of them. I don’t want to deal with this now. But am I am going to have to deal with this eventually.

Addressing or confronting someone or something

Not everything is so pleasant. It’s common to use “deal with” when you have to handle or manage an unpleasant situation. This might involve interacting with a difficult person or facing a tough issue directly. For example, if someone works in customer service, they might say, “I had to deal with some angry customers today.”

On an ordinary day, he might say he had to serve his customers. He might say he had to interact with his customers. But when it was really hard, uncomfortable even, he said he had to “deal with” angry customers.

You might have to deal with a frustrating situation, like bad weather or construction delays during a trip. In this case, you’d say something like, “We had to deal with bad weather and stop-and-go traffic the whole way.”

On a normal day, you would have had a pleasant drive. But this was an unpleasant exception. You had to confront and handle difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. So you say, “We had to deal with bad weather; we had to deal with construction delays the whole way.”

Focusing on or involving a specific topic

There’s one more way to use “deal with” and it doesn’t involve handling or confronting anything directly. Instead, it’s about focusing on or involving a topic. For example, if an article or book “deals with” a certain subject, it means that the article or book covers or talks about that issue.

Let’s say you’re reading an article on climate change. You might say, “This article deals with environmental policies of emerging economies.” That means, the article is about or the article focuses on environmental policies.

You can use “deal with” with lots of different types of media: a book, a report, an article, a speech, an interview, a movie, a documentary—all these things can “deal with” a topic if they are about that topic.

Have you ever seen the movie, “Marriage Story”? It’s really good. It’s on Netflix, starring Scarlett Johannsen. It deals with a couple going through a divorce. It deals with custody issues around their young son. It’s about those topics.

So those are your two meanings of “deal with.” First, it means to address or confront a challenge. “I have to deal with all these emails.” And second, if you’re talking about some type of media: “the report deals with the challenge of climate change.”