Fade away

Fade away

“Fade away” is a phrasal verb. To “fade away” is to gradually disappear or to become less noticeable over time.

Imagine that you’re at an outdoor concert, but you have to leave early. When you’re in the concert area, the sound of the band is very loud. But you start walking to your car. You parked far away. What happens to the sound of the band as you walk to your car? The sound starts to fade away.

It doesn’t happen all at once . The band is still playing. But slowly, slowly you’re walking away. And slowly the sound starts to go from loud to less loud, then to a normal volume, then quieter, and when you reach your car, you might just barely hear the sound of the band playing.

That’s what it means to “fade away.” The sound of the band faded away as you got closer to your car. It gradually became less noticeable, until it almost disappeared.

Here’s another one with sound. The southern accent in the U.S. is fading away in large southern cities. Young people in cities like Atlanta and Raleigh are now speaking in a neutral accent. It’s not as common to hear the southern accent in those cities—not as common as it was a few decades ago.

So in those places, the southern accent is fading away; it’s becoming less noticeable. In those places, it’s likely that the southern accent will be rare sometime in the future. This will happen over generations, but the accent is fading away in those big southern cities.

Memories can fade away, too, especially those from childhood. Most of us have memories that we’ll hold onto for life. But we also have memories that fade away. The years go by and those memories become weaker and weaker . And then, now that we’re older, we look back and find that memories of certain people—extended family members, friends, teachers—those memories have faded away. They’ve gradually disappeared.

Another way to use “fade away” is with emotions. Let’s try it with “excitement.” If you give a child a present, and the child loves it, there are two potential outcomes. Either the gift will provide lasting joy, or the excitement will fade away.

As a gift giver, you try to guess, and you try to give a gift that a kid will hold onto and value for a long time. But it’s impossible to know ahead of time. Often , kids get presents, they get excited at the beginning, they love it…but then the excitement fades away, and a few months later, that toy, that gift, is collecting dust somewhere.

Now, I’ll give you a tip. The word “fade” means to become less distinct, less strong. “Fade away” is similar, but “fade away” implies that something will disappear completely or almost completely.

If you have a sofa—or, better yet, a painting—if you have a painting and you hang it on the wall next to your window, and if the sun comes in the window every day, then the colors of the painting will start to fade. But the paint will never disappear. So we would say the colors on the painting are starting to fade, but we don’t say “fade away.”

Same with a couch by the window—the colors are fading in the part of the couch exposed to direct sunlight. If you wash your favorite clothes over and over, the colors will fade. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can buy jeans that are already faded. But we say simply “fade” because the color won’t disappear.

So these are examples of “fade;” we say that when something is not going to disappear, or almost disappear.

“Fade away,” remember, means something is disappearing or almost disappearing. Childhood memories—we’ll gradually lose some of them and one day, they’ll be gone forever. That’s why we have to continue to make good memories, right? Walking away from that concert—eventually, you can just barely hear the music. Walk far enough, and you won’t hear it at all. The sound is fading away. The excitement of opening a new present: well, that often disappears entirely, right? The excitement can fade away.

Here are a few more quick examples of “fade away.” You can stay out and watch a sunset until the light fades away. Your enthusiasm for your job might fade away if you become bored with it after a few years. A celebrity’s influence might fade away if people stop paying attention to him or her. The smell of a new car will fade away after about a year.

See you next time!

And that is all for us here at Plain English today, Monday, January 22, 2024. We talked about accents today. And that’s a fun topic for English learners. So our next Plus+ member live call is going to be on January 30. And the topic of the call is going to be about accents. We’ll talk about which English accents you’ve heard, which ones you like, which ones are hard, which ones are easy. And then you can tell us if there are a lot of accents in your native language, and if anyone faces discrimination based on any regional accent.

So that one is coming up on January 30, next Tuesday. If you’re a Plus+ member, the Zoom link is on your dashboard in the live events section. If you’re not yet a Plus+ member, consider joining. You’ll be invited to live conversation calls, where you can practice your speaking in a safe and supportive environment. To join, just visit us at PlainEnglish.com/Plus .

And a special thanks to JR, who produces these episodes. When the background music fades away in a few seconds, that’s because JR has masterfully put together the audios for you. So thanks JR, and thanks to all of you for being part of Plain English. See you on Thursday.