Hand out
Today’s English expression is a phrasal verb, “hand out.” I’m going to show you two ways to use “hand out” today. There are other ways, but we’ll focus on these two today.
In both of the meanings we’ll discuss today, someone is giving something to a lot of other people.
We were talking about the ATP’s decision not to award ranking points to the Wimbledon tennis tournament this year. But I clarified that Wimbledon will still happen. Players will still go, it will be on television, there will be a trophy, and money will be handed out. Money will be handed out; the tournament will hand out money to the players.
In this case, “hand out” means to give a share or a piece of a whole to a lot of people. In total, Wimbledon will hand out 40.3 British pounds, or $50.5 million U.S. dollars. That means, Wimbledon will give a total of 40.3 million pounds to many people, each person will get a share of the total.
However, the most common way to use “hand out” is to give something identical to everyone. A few times a year, the management company in my office hands out snacks in the lobby. They hand out snacks to all the employees who work in the building. This is not my company, this is the owner of the building. They hand out snacks in the lobby. That means, they give snacks to everyone. They give a little bit of the same thing to everyone.
Do any of you go to conferences or conventions? If you go to a typical business conference, people are handing stuff out all day long. If you walk around enough, you’ll get branded water bottles, key chains, pens—and more and more pens–, notebooks, flash drives, portable chargers, all kinds of stuff. Companies hand this stuff out because they want you to go home with something that has their name and logo on it. They hand this stuff out: they give one to everyone who will take it.
I don’t know what it’s like in school these days, but when I was in school, teachers would hand papers out all the time. They would give one copy of the paper to everyone in the class. The act of giving or distributing something is to “hand it out.” So often, the teacher would ask for a volunteer. And she would give that volunteer a stack of papers and say, “Please hand this out to everyone.” That means, please distribute these—please give one of these—to everyone.
These have all been good things. Who doesn’t want a free snack, a worksheet, a branded flash drive? But here’s a headline I saw. Police handed out 56 tickets in a seatbelt enforcement push. That means, they stopped people passing on the street to check if they were wearing their seatbelts, as the law requires. Most people were wearing seatbelts. But 56 unlucky people were not wearing seatbelts. And the police handed out tickets to anyone who was not following the law.
Quote of the Week
Here’s a great quote for you. Before I tell you the quote, “formal education” means education in a classroom. Like, going to school, high school, university, whatever. That’s formal education. So here’s the quote from Jim Rohn; he was an entrepreneur. He said, “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
See you next time!
Great, well this seems like as good a time as any to remind you about Plain English Plus+. That’s the best way to extend what you’re learning in Plain English, to become more of an active learner. You’ll find exercises, in-depth video lessons, live conversation calls, writing practice and more. Check that all out at PlainEnglish.com/Plus . And remember, self-education will make you a fortune!
That’s all for today, almost the end of June already, halfway through 2022. Have a fantastic week and remember we’ll be back here on Thursday with a new lesson topic. See you then.
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