Put off

Put off

“Put off.”

We use “put off” when we delay or postpone something that we know we have to do. And usually, when you put something off, it’s because you don’t want to do it. It’s good for you, but you don’t want to do it. There’s an element of procrastination in here. It’s something you should do; it’s something you should do now. But if you put it off, you delay it until another time.

Students are the kings and queens of putting things off. I like to plan ahead now—JR knows that. But when I was in college, I would always put off studying until the week or a few days before the test. Sometimes the professors would give us an assignment a month, six weeks before it was due. But what did we all do? Without fail? We put it off until the last minute.

To “put something off” until the last minute is to delay it until you can’t delay it anymore.

Here’s a great example. When I lived in Chicago, for the second time, I had a back porch. And the back porch door was never perfect. The solid door closed and locked. But the screen door didn’t close properly. I knew when I bought the apartment, I knew that eventually I’d want to fix that door. But I put it off. The time was never right to spend my money on repairing a screen door. It worked fine, but it just didn’t close properly.

Every time I’d go in and out of that door—every day during the summer, every few days during the winter—I’d think, I really need to get this door fixed. And every time I thought, yes, but there are other priorities in my life right now.

I put it off for years! I did finally get it fixed, I think the year I moved out. I lived there for six years. I put off fixing the door for five out of the six years I lived there! If I had just done it at the beginning, it would have cost less and I would have enjoyed a functioning door for much longer. But that’s what happens when you put things off.

Malls are struggling these days. If you own a shopping mall and the tenants aren’t paying much rent, or there’s a lot of vacant space, what can you do to save money? Number one thing: you can put off maintenance. Just don’t repair the parking lot, don’t repair the fountain, don’t replace lights that are burned out. That’s how a mall can become a zombie mall , where nobody wants to be.

Health. This is another area where people put things off. If something’s wrong, the best thing is to address it and not wait. If you have pain, discomfort, whatever—see a doctor, if you can, and I don’t mean consult with Dr. Google . But so many of us have creeping concerns, a little pain here, some discomfort there—it’s not an emergency. We can always put it off until tomorrow. And then again until the next day, and the day after…but just like with home repairs or work or studying, with your health, it’s not a good idea to put things off, to delay them.

Sometimes it’s unavoidable. Let’s say you called a meeting at work to discuss the results of a project. But if the project isn’t done yet, there’s no point in having the meeting. So you can put the meeting off until you have the results of the project to talk about.

And that’s another way you can use “put off.” Put something off until a time that you can do it. You can put a meeting off until the materials are ready. You can put a doctor’s visit off until your new insurance coverage kicks in. You can put a school paper off until the night before it’s due.

See you next time!

How did we not do “put off” until now? It’s really common, I’ve probably said it a hundred times but for whatever reason I just never selected it as the expression. I wasn’t putting it off, I swear!

You might be listening to this and thinking, I really shouldn’t put off upgrading my English any longer. And if that’s you, then this is a great time to join Plain English Plus+ . Sometimes, when we put things off, we’re afraid of how much work something will be, or how unpleasant it is. But with Plain English Plus+, you can do a lot of work if you want to. But you don’t have to. There are lots of small ways you can upgrade your skills in listening, vocabulary, and writing without a huge time commitment.

So if you’ve been putting it off, now’s the time to come join us. PlainEnglish.com/Plus has all the details. PlainEnglish.com/Plus . We’ll be back on Monday with a new episode. See you then.