Pass out

Pass out

Today’s English expression is to “pass out.” To pass out is to lose consciousness. There are two ways to use it; one is stronger than the other. Let’s start with the stronger and more common use of the term.

When you pass out, you lose consciousness in a way that is more than simply falling asleep; it’s something medical. This can happen if you’re sick, badly injured, if you faint, or if you overdose on drugs or alcohol. That’s how you heard it earlier today.

A survivor of the Enyobeni Tavern tragedy said that she smelled a bad odor and then passed out on the floor. She lost consciousness. For some reason—we don’t know what it was, we don’t know why—but for some reason, her body shut down and she lost consciousness. She was very lucky because she regained her consciousness afterward , when someone was pouring water on her. She was very lucky because she was then able to escape.

We don’t know for sure what happened, but it’s probably fair to say that the victims first passed out and then died soon thereafter.

This was a very dangerous situation where passing out led, probably, to the teenagers dying of whatever they inhaled, drank, ingested, whatever. A person can also pass out from drinking too much alcohol or from taking drugs. Remember that in this sense, to pass out is more than just falling asleep. If someone passes out from drinking too much alcohol, and you can’t wake that person up, that person should go to the hospital.

We’ve all seen movies where a character hits another person hard on the head and the victim immediately falls to the ground. The victim passes out. That person is not asleep, right? But often that person is not dead either. He—it usually is a he, in the movies, isn’t it?—he has passed out and will regain consciousness later.

Passing out isn’t always dangerous. When you faint, your blood pressure drops, your brain doesn’t get the oxygen it needs to function, and your body—as a defensive mechanism—shuts down. This can be in response to stress, emotional trauma, seeing blood, or from not eating enough. But regardless , this isn’t sleep.

So you get the idea: for the most part, to pass out means to lose consciousness for a medical reason.

However, colloquially, meaning informally, some people do use “pass out” as an exaggerated way of saying “to fall asleep when you’re really really tired” or “to fall into a deep sleep.” This is probably not the correct use of the phrase, but nonetheless people do use it this way. I even do sometimes, but only when the context is clear.

So imagine you have a really long day. You wake up at 6 am, go to work, leave work, go to the gym, get home, make dinner, then go to a friend’s house for a birthday party, and come home at 1:00 in the morning. You might say, “I got home at 1:00 a.m. and I immediately passed out.” That means, you went right to sleep because you were very tired.

Have you ever slept through something really loud, like a fire alarm? Why didn’t you hear the alarm? “I was passed out” you might say. In that case, you were truly asleep, but it was a deep sleep.

You could say, “I passed out on the couch watching TV” or “I passed out early last night” if you fell asleep earlier than you expected. When you use it in the sense of falling asleep, you usually reserve this for those times when you’re really tired or when you fall asleep unexpectedly. Again, this is not the textbook way of using “pass out,” but people do sometimes use it this way.

Quote of the Week

Here we go, time for the quote of the week. We’re reaching way back in history for this one: Frederick the Great. Frederick the Great was a king in Prussia, modern-day Germany from 1740 until he died in 1786. So here’s the quote from Frederick the Great: “What good is experience if you do not reflect?”

I like this quote a lot. Sure, experience is great, but did you learn from it? Did you reflect afterward? Did you think about what happened? Reflecting, thinking back on it, that makes the experience worth it . I love this quote, again from Frederick the Great: “What good is experience if you do not reflect?”

See you next time!

We were talking last week about active versus passive learning. And those of you who get our emails should have gotten an invitation to a quick video I put together on the topic. The video talks about the differences between active and passive learning, and includes some tips on how to turn some common passive activities into active ones. And a lot of them are free.

So if you get the Plain English emails, you should have already gotten an email about this video. Just click the link in the emails and you’ll see it. If you are not on the list—or if you’re listening to this a long time in the future—then I’ll make it easy on you: Just go to PlainEnglish.com/active and you’ll see it. I’ll also put it in the show notes for this episode if you’re listening on a podcast app.

So there’s no excuse not to watch that video. PlainEnglish.com/active or check the show notes. It’s not a long video, just maybe 15 minutes or so, but I think the video should spark some ideas on how you can become a more active English learner.

That’s all for today. Remember to check the Facebook group for any updates on today’s topic. I’ll be following the news and keeping you up to date in there. See you right back here for a new lesson on Thursday.