In the face of

In the face of

Today we’re going to talk about what “in the face of” means. Here’s how you heard it earlier. Koala bears are cute, fuzzy, cuddly, peaceful, but often defenseless in the face of natural disasters. Let’s break this down—first of all, “defenseless.” This simply means they don’t have many options for survival. They don’t run very fast, so they can’t outrun the fires. They can’t build a shelter to protect them from heavy storms, et cetera. Most smaller animals are defenseless in the face of wildfires. Humans are an exception; we can see them coming and we can get away from them relatively easily. But most animals in the wild are defenseless in the face of wildfires.

Here’s what it means, “in the face of” means “when confronted with.” Small animals are defenseless when confronted with wildfires; or when they have to deal with wildfires. When wildfires are a threat, the animals are defenseless.

How else can we use “in the face of”? I’m going to give you a few examples. As I read them to you, I want you to notice that these are all examples of either threats or confrontation. Here we go, some ways to use “in the face of”: in the face of opposition, in the face of the enemy, in the face of competition, in the face of lawsuits, in the face of failure, in the face of trauma, in the face of pressure.

I’ll give you some more detail on those, but those are all examples of something that’s either dangerous—like “the enemy” or wildfires—or simply difficulty or confrontation. Confrontation is like conflict, so, competition, lawsuits, pressure, things like that.

Here’s an example. One thing I use at home is Tide Pods. Tide is laundry detergent and instead of coming in a huge bottle, Tide Pods are these little packets and you just throw one or two of them into the washing machine and you don’t need to deal with pouring the sticky liquid into a cup and all that stuff. The problem is, Tide Pods look like delicious candy to a seven- or eight-year-old. And when these first came out, there were a lot of cases of children poisoning themselves by eating these little packets of laundry detergent. In the face of bad publicity, Proctor and Gamble had to redesign the packaging to make it harder for children to access.

In the face of bad publicity—when confronted with bad publicity—P&G had to change the design. You can also say that, in the face of several lawsuits, P&G had to improve its product safety. Both of those work. These are dangers to P&G—it’s not good if your customers are poisoned and they start suing you. In the face of these dangers, P&G had to revisit its product safety.

You might say that in the face of adversity, your family has stuck together. Adversity is like, negative events. Let’s say that you have a beloved family member who dies, and then another one is dealing with health problems, maybe one other person lost his job. These are things that are difficult to deal with, and put together, they represent adversity. But you might say that, “in the face of adversity, our family has stuck together.” That means that, despite the difficulty, and when having to confront or deal with the difficulty, your family has still stuck together, supporting one another. In the face of adversity. You can also say, “in the face of tragedy.” You could say, “in the face of tragedy, my family remained strong.”

Those are all good examples of “in the face of.”

Quote of the week

We have a quote of the week for you today. I saw it this week and I recognized it; I had definitely seen it before. It’s a quote that is near and dear to my heart, especially now that I am involved in this program. This program is called “Plain English” for a reason: plain English is a phrase that means, language that is simple, direct, and clear; it can be easily understood. And there is a quote by a famous English writer that explains my philosophy perfectly, not just for you, as English learners, but for any English writer.

Here’s the quote by George Orwell: “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” That’s perfect. He’s saying, don’t make it too complicated. Just speak in plain English—don’t try to use words that are too complicated or scientific because that interferes with your ability to communicate.

And that’s the heart of why we speak and write—to communicate, to connect with others. So why would we use words that interfere with that? To sound smart? Give me a break! Once more, from George Orwell: “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

That’s it for today; thanks for joining us for this episode. Once more, the URL is PlainEnglish.com/226 if you’d like to see the other resources that accompany this episode. Next up, on Thursday, there’s a country that’s considering changing the way they represent their names. You know, we in the western world typically put our given names first and our family names after that. In Asia, they tend to put their family names first, given names second. There’s one country contemplating a switch—we’ll tell you all about that coming up on Thursday.

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, then I know you’ll love being part of , our membership program for anyone looking to speak English with more confidence. If you ever find yourself too scared to speak, you can’t find the right word, you don’t understand people at native speed—if that sounds like you, then you can benefit from the resources we have in Plain English Plus. I’d really like you to learn more by going to PlainEnglish.com/Plus and reading all about it. Once again, visit PlainEnglish.com/Plus, and I’ll look forward to welcoming you into our membership.