Pass down

Pass down

“Pass down” is a phrasal verb that means, to give something to someone who follows you, usually the next generation.

You can pass down a thing, but you can also pass down a behavior, an idea, or a set of beliefs.

Let’s start with things. In some families, there are valuables that each generation passes down to the next. For example, a man might own a watch. And he might pass that down to his son. And when the son has kids of his own, he might pass the watch down to his own kids.

So this is an item that gets passed down from generation to generation.

It doesn’t have to be through multiple generations. And it can even skip a generation. The important thing is that one person gives something to someone who follows. My grandmother passed a painting down to me when she died. She knew I liked it, so she passed it down to me.

Think about what you have in your house. Do you have anything you’d like to pass down to another generation? It could be in your family or someone else that’s meaningful in your life—blood relation is not a requirement to use “pass down.”

And the person doesn’t have to die first! You can pass something down to the next generation even if you’re still alive. Think back to the example of the watch. Let’s say you have a watch that has been in your family for a long time. You might pass the watch down to your son on his eighteenth birthday. That works even if you’re still alive.

So now let’s talk about intangible things. Here’s a really common one: a recipe. “This recipe has been passed down from generation to generation.” A recipe is an idea. So when an idea is passed down from one generation to the next, the older person teaches the idea to someone who follows.

A recipe that has been passed down through the generations means, kids learn to make the recipe as they get older; they then teach their own kids years later.

Traditions can be passed down. Perhaps it’s a tradition for a family to go to church on Christmas eve. That tradition can be passed down to future generations.

Beliefs can be passed down, too. This can be within a family or within an entire culture. A lot of people are very surprised to know how many Americans own firearms. There are more guns than people in the U.S., and the vast majority of the guns are legal.

I don’t own a gun and I don’t want to. But in many parts of the U.S., the belief in owning a firearm for personal protection is passed down from generation to generation. The U.S. is a massive country; it spans a continent. And in the early days of the republic—and actually before we became one country—there was no 911. There was no police force. There were few cities. The law was not there to protect you. It was a very remote, very sparsely populated mass of land.

And so in those times, a family would own a gun for hunting and for personal protection. And that belief, that value, has been passed down from generation to generation. That’s why, now in 2024, the belief and value of owning a firearm for personal protection is so strong in the U.S., whereas it’s almost unheard of in other developed countries—actually almost anywhere else in the world. Now of course we do have 911, now we do have police, now the country is not as dangerous as it once was. If anything, now the danger comes from the guns! But the belief in gun ownership for safety and protection has been passed down from one generation to the next.

The grizzly bear was almost extinct in the western part of North America. For years, people just thought there were enough animals out there and we could hunt and kill them with abandon. That belief was passed down through the generations—until the buffalo and grizzly bear and other species were either extinct or almost extinct. But beliefs can change. Now, the grizzly bear population is rebounding, thanks to laws that protect endangered species.

Humans are learning to live with a growing bear population; bears are learning to live with humans . Bears are fast learners. If they learn they can get a full meal by breaking into a dumpster and eating trash, the bears will pass that behavior and knowledge down to their cubs, like a grandmother passing down a cherished recipe. But if bears learn to stay away from humans, they’ll pass that behavior and knowledge down to their cubs. That’s what we want, right?

See you next time!

That’s all we have for you here at Plain English today. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Remember, every episode comes with a free transcript online at PlainEnglish.com. You can find the transcripts by episode number. Today’s episode was number 644, so just go to PlainEnglish.com/644 and that’s where you’ll find the transcripts and all the words you heard in today’s lesson.

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