Quiet down

Quiet down

“Quiet down.”

This is an easy one. To “quiet down” is to lower the noise level . This is almost always used to refer to a person or a group of people. When you quiet down, you reduce the amount of noise that you are making.

Most English-speaking kids will learn this expression at a young age. That’s because their parents and teachers are constantly telling kids to “quiet down.”

Teachers in a classroom would tell kids to “quiet down” when the noise level of the classroom is getting too high . When we were very little, we had nap time in school. We would all take naps in the middle of the day. And when nap time came, some kids would keep talking. And the teachers would say, “quiet down.” They wanted less noise so that we could all sleep for a bit.

And then when we got older, we had group projects and assignments . The teacher would talk for a while, and then students would work together on projects . But you can imagine that the noise level would get too loud . And whenever our teachers thought we were making too much noise for the situation, they would tell us to quiet down.

I went to school in a yellow school bus. It stopped at the bottom of my driveway . Some years, we had nice bus drivers . I remember one named Charlene; she would let the kids have some fun on the bus. But another bus driver was named Mary Jane. And she didn’t put up with anything . When we were on Mary Jane’s bus, we were expected to sit in our seats , face the front , and not make any noise.

There are two things I always remember Mary Jane telling us. Face the front and quiet down. When she told us to quiet down, it meant that we were making too much noise.

Parents tell their kids to “quiet down” if the kids in the house are making too much noise. That could be at the dinner table , at bedtime , or just whenever the noise level is too high in the house. Quiet down, parents often tell their kids.

You can say “quiet down” to other adults, but just be aware that this is something that parents say to kids, so if you say it to other adults, they might not like it very much. If your neighbors are playing music at a loud volume, you could ask them to quiet down. But it would feel like you’re talking to kids. They might turn the music up in response.

A library is a place where you shouldn’t make a lot of noise. If you make too much noise in the library—as a kid or as an adult—the librarian might ask you to quiet down.

Up until this point, our examples have been about “quiet down” in the imperative or with a request. You’re telling someone else, usually a child, what to do.

But you can use “quiet down” to describe what people do, too. We most often use “quiet down” to talk about the noise people themselves make, but you can sometimes use “quiet down” to refer to an environment—usually an environment where people are making noise.

I used to go to a big office in Chicago, a floor full of people and activity. Phones ringing, emails, conversations, keyboards typing , all that stuff . It wasn’t a loud office, but there was a lot of activity. But the office started to quiet down around six.

There were certainly people working after six o’clock. But there weren’t as many meetings , phones weren’t ringing as much. Things started to quiet down. That means that the noise level of the environment started to fall. It wasn’t as noisy .

So you can say, “The office started to quiet down around six” or simply , “Things started to quiet down around six.”

Do any of you work in the hospitality industry ? If so, you know there are peak hours . If you work in a restaurant, you might have a big rush around mealtime : lots of activity in the kitchen, lots of people in the dining room. In the U.S., that time might be from six to eight at night, depending on the type of restaurant and the location. So you can say, “things were crazy here until 7:30, but then it started to quiet down after about 8:00.” That means the environment got quieter after 8:00.

Most of the time, you’ll use “quiet down” when referring to people or to activity with people. But we like to humanize our animals . And I used “quiet down” when referring to animals in our story about how animals reacted to the recent solar eclipse. I said that many animals started to quiet down when darkness started to fall over the zoos in the eclipse’s path. That means the animals had been making noise or moving around . But they lowered their noise levels, stopped moving as much, when total darkness fell during the eclipse.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today. If you got to the end of this lesson and you find yourself wanting to practice “quiet down,” then we have the perfect way to do that. Find the tab called “Your turn” on the transcript and write a sentence using “quiet down.” If you do that, I’ll read your example and give you personal feedback.

“Your turn” is available to all Plus+ members, so if you’re not yet a Plus+ member, then make sure to sign up at PlainEnglish.com/plus

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