Give rise to

Give rise to

The English expression I’d like to tell you about today is “to give rise to.” To give rise to means, to cause something, or to cause something to happen. Often with the word “rise” it implies that it causes something not only to happen but to grow. Here’s how you heard it earlier in this lesson.

A male hippo is a big boy. He eats a lot and he produces a lot of waste, which he rather inconsiderately leaves in the lakes and rivers of Colombia’s countryside. That gives rise to high levels of algae and harmful bacteria in those waterways. That causes harmful bacteria; that causes high levels of algae; that causes the chemical composition of those lakes and rivers to change. So we say it caused the high levels of algae, and it caused them to grow.

Let’s move on to another example, shall we?

Here are a few from health. Eating a lot of salt can give rise to high blood pressure. That can cause high blood pressure, and if you eat too much salt, your blood pressure will go up and keep going up. Sleeping too little and being under too much stress at work can give rise to a variety of other health issues, like anxiety, weight gain, things like that. Keep it up and you’ll face a rising number of health problems later in life.

So far we’ve talked only about negative examples, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. The advent of the iPhone gave rise to an entire industry of app developers. Think about that—think about all the people who develop mobile apps now. That job didn’t exist before the iPhone, or at least it looked a lot different. But the iPhone gave rise to that entire industry of people coding apps for mobile phones. The iPhone caused it, and that industry has grown and grown ever since.

All those mobile apps have given rise to what we call the “gig economy.” Being able to do small jobs for people, whether that’s delivering food or driving them around or doing tasks around the house—that has been made possible, in large part, by mobile apps. Mobile apps and the culture of personalized service have given rise to the gig economy.

I saw an article online that said that war injuries from World War II gave rise to modern plastic surgery. I did not know that. Soldiers returning with injuries looked to the new field of plastic surgery to help hide the physical effects of their injuries. So the demand from returning soldiers gave rise to the plastic surgery industry. It caused the plastic surgery industry to develop as much as it has—obviously demand now is not tied to that same cause, but demand from the soldiers caused the industry to develop in the first place.

JR’s song of the week

Time for JR’s song of the week. You know, JR is Mexican and he’s pretty up on American culture—more so than I am in many ways. But there are still some things—just a few things—that he doesn’t know. When he sent me this song, he said it was by Daryl Hall and John Oates. And I thought, “Daryl Hall, who’s that? Must be some new popular singer” and then it hit me: this is Hall & Oates! It’s an early rock duo—indeed their names are Daryl Hall and John Oates—but we all just know them as Hall & Oates. We don’t even say it like two names, we just say Hallandoates, just like one word.

Anyway, the song is “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates. It’s about a spoiled rich girl who uses her parents’ money to do whatever she wants. It was originally written about a man, but they changed it so that the song would be titled “rich girl” instead of “rich guy.”

Unrelated fact, a famous serial murderer said that the song motivated him to commit his crimes. That doesn’t take anything away from the song, I just thought I’d mention that.

That’s all for this Plain English lesson. Thanks for sticking with us to the end! We’ll be back on Monday with another riveting Plain English lesson.

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