Distance yourself

Distance yourself from something or someone

Today’s expression is to distance yourself from something or someone. Normally when we use the word “distance,” it’s a noun. The distance from my house to my office is six miles. That’s a noun. And it’s very physical. You can measure distance. Six miles, six meters, sixteen kilometers.

The way I used it today is a little different. First of all, it’s a verb, it’s an action. And second of all, it’s not physical at all; it’s more verbal or metaphorical. If you distance yourself from something, you communicate that you’re not involved with something. You don’t want to be associated with something or someone. You can distance yourself from a person, if you don’t want to be associated with that person. You can distance yourself from an idea, if you don’t want to be associated with that idea, if you don’t want people to think that that idea is yours.

This happens in politics all the time. When a leader is popular, that leader has a lot of friends. But when leaders’ popularity starts to decline, members of their parties start to distance themselves from the unpopular leaders. And that’s how I used it in today’s lesson. We were talking about Liz Truss, who was prime minister of the UK for 48 days . When she released her first budget proposal, it was extremely unpopular. Immediately, members of her party started to distance themselves from her and this budget.

What can a politician do to distance himself from an unpopular leader? This case had it all. First, an MP can say things like, “Well, I was never her biggest supporter in the first place.” Or, an MP can say: “I support the party, but I can’t support this policy.” Or even: “I’ve always been independent and I never supported this budget.” Or: “I like Liz Truss as a person, but I never thought she should be prime minister.” These are things an MP can say to distance himself from the leader. Yes, they’re still party members, but they don’t want to be associated with these unpopular policies and they don’t want their names in the same sentence as the unpopular leader’s name, in this case Liz Truss.

Notice, none of this involves actual distance. This is all verbal, these are other actions you take to avoid being associated with something or someone. So in the first weeks after the new budget, a lot of MP’s were at pains to distance themselves from their unpopular leader.

Have you ever seen online English courses that promise you’ll be fluent in a very short period of time? All for a one-time payment of $500? You may have noticed that I distance myself from those types of courses and claims. I don’t want to be associated with that kind of exaggerated marketing. I’m not here to criticize it, but I just don’t want to be associated with it. I distance myself from that. You won’t see me making exaggerated claims, you won’t hear me talking about languages like it’s something you check off a list before a vacation.

There are obviously people who want those types of products—and that’s fine. But I distance myself from those kinds of quick-fix, easy-way-out, pay me one payment now and in [X] weeks or months, you’ll be “fluent.” I also hate the word “fluent” and I distance myself from that word, too, but that’s another story.

This happens when businesses sponsor celebrities. This is the same story over and over and over. All you have to do is change the names and change a few words. This story happens all the time. Today it’s Kanye West. He made anti-Semitic comments on Twitter.

And now a lot of companies that he works with are distancing themselves from Kanye West. Creative Artists Agency, CAA, a talent agency, dropped him as a client. They don’t want their name, their business, to be associated with Kanye West, so they said he can’t be a client anymore. Then, they issued statements saying they don’t support what he said. Gap and Adidas are also distancing themselves from Kanye West.

This is just the same as in politics. When a celebrity is popular, the brands all want their names associated with the celebrity. When the celebrity says something offensive, gets arrested, is involved in a messy divorce, or whatever, then those brands distance themselves from the misbehaving celebrity. All of a sudden, it’s not quite as much fun to be associated with that person, so they distance themselves.

Quote of the Week

Here’s a quote from Pablo Picasso today. “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

You know I recently moved. When I came to Mexico, I just came with suitcases, so I eliminated a lot of the unnecessary before I came. Now my challenge is not add a lot of unnecessary things back to my life here!

I liked this quote from Picasso: “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

See you next time!

And that brings us to the end of today’s Plain English. On Thursday’s lesson, we’ll take a break from the hard issues of the day and we’ll have a little fun with vocabulary—and how in different parts of the United States, we call things by different names. It’s fun, you’ll like it.

So that’s on Thursday. Remember, today’s lesson is at PlainEnglish.com/518. And in the transcript, I have links to all the original lessons. So if you want to go back and listen to the asteroid story or the South Africa story again, just find the links in today’s transcript at PlainEnglish.com/518.

See you on Thursday.