Give in

Give in

“Give in.”

This is a hard one—“give in” means to stop resisting and to do something that you were trying not to do, especially when it’s really tempting. “Give in” is usually negative—it’s not something you want to do. And it sometimes conveys a sense of weakness. You were trying to resist, you were trying not to do something, you didn’t want to do it. But you did it anyway. You gave in.

Think of it this way: it’s like surrendering.

Often, we use this with temptations. I don’t work in an office anymore. But when I did, there was always junk food around. Donuts, bagels, sweets—plates of it, just sitting out for everyone to take. Free! And every time I would walk by , I would be tempted. It’s right there. It’s free. Probably delicious, but not in my diet. I was tempted.

Occasionally I would give in and grab a donut. I didn’t want to have the donut that day. In general, I tried to avoid the sweet food people put out. But the temptation was strong. And my defenses—sometimes—were weak. And when I took a donut, even when I was trying to resist: that’s when I gave in. That’s when I abandoned my goal of avoiding junk food that day.

Parents want to make their kids happy. This is a general rule. But parents also know that some things that make kids happy in the short term are not good for them in the long term. Being a parent—I can’t even imagine. You have to be strong. But sometimes you just give in, I know.

Maybe your son or daughter’s bedtime is 9:00. You know they should be in bed by 9:00 to get enough sleep for the next day . But they really want to watch the end of this soccer game or the end of this movie, and they pester you, and they beg you, and they try to convince you, and they swear they’ll be up early the next day, no problem—and finally you give in. You surrender. You say, fine, stay up until the end of the movie.

These are relatively innocent examples: having a donut, staying up past your bedtime. But “give in” can also be used for more serious temptations. A lot of the world relies on trust and honesty, even when individuals would benefit from breaking the rules.

Professional athletes know there are banned substances. Taking those substances is against the rules and often against the law. But taking them can also give them an edge or help them recover from injury. Athletes are human: even honest ones must be tempted. Many will resist the temptation. But others will give in and take performance-enhancing drugs that are against their league’s rules or against the law.

It happens in white-collar jobs too. “Insider trading” is when someone uses secret company information to make a profit in the stock market. A lot of people know when there’s a merger coming up, when a drug trial is successful, when a new product is about to be launched, when there are problems in the supply chain. If you know this private information, you’re not allowed to buy or sell stock to personally profit from it. But some people do give in and trade on this information. A lot of people get away with it, but others get caught.

Academics are under a lot of pressure to write journal articles. Publish or perish is the saying. But most journals only publish articles about positive scientific findings . The vast majority of practitioners are honest. But more than a few have given in and falsified their data in order to support their hypotheses.

See you next time!

And that is all for us here at Plain English. This was a long one, lots of new words and concepts in this one, so congratulations on making it to the end. This was lesson number 650, so the full lesson can be found at PlainEnglish.com/650. That is all thanks to JR, our producer.

We’ll be back with a new episode on Thursday. See you then.