Set off

To 'set off' an explosion is to cause the explosion

Today's story: Asteroid hit
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Set off

Today’s expression is to “set off.” This is a phrasal verb with multiple meanings, but the way I used it today means to cause an explosion.

It has been a while since I’ve seen the movie Armageddon . But luckily I had Wikipedia to remind me of the plot. A massive asteroid the size of Texas was heading for earth, and NASA has just eighteen days to stop the asteroid. This being a Hollywood movie, the answer involved a huge explosion.

NASA decides to send a team of people to land on the asteroid, drill a deep hole, and then set off a nuclear bomb. This would destroy the asteroid and save the earth. They key step here is to set off a nuclear bomb deep inside the asteroid. “Set off” in this case means, to cause the bomb to explode.

What you’re doing with “set off” is you take the action to cause the explosion. In the movies, this usually involves turning a key or pressing a combination into a keypad or connecting two wires or lighting a fuse or something.

When you have a bomb, you would say that you “dropped a bomb” if you dropped it from the air, causing the explosion on the ground. But you would say that you “set off a bomb” if you put it on the ground and caused it to explode later.

A bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia exploded on Saturday morning, October 8. I wrote this lesson on October 9, and at that time, it still wasn’t clear what happened on the bridge. Russia said that someone set off a truck bomb. Other theories involve an attack from the sea or the air.

The Nord Stream pipeline sends natural gas from Russia to Europe. Despite sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Europe continues to buy natural gas from Russia. But this is a highly uncomfortable situation for both sides. In late September, leaks were found in the pipeline. The leaks meant less gas was reaching its destination. Security analysts suspected that this was Russia’s way of reducing the badly-needed gas to Europe while pretending that it wasn’t at fault. However, European military analysts believe that someone set off an explosion with several hundred kilograms of explosive material in two places.

You can set off fireworks. In Lesson 274, you learned that people in New York City discovered a new way to entertain themselves early in the pandemic : setting off fireworks on weeknights. Neighbors, parents, and pets didn’t like this new pastime. If you want to annoy your neighbors, you can start setting off fireworks without warning on a non-holiday.

We have a lot of engineers in the audience. What happens when you’re building a road or a dam or something and you run into a lot of rock? You set off a controlled explosion to blast through the rock. You cause an explosion. You place explosive material, you light the fuse, you cause the explosion to get through the rock to build the tunnel or bridge or dam or road or whatever.

JR’s song of the week

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a song of the week. This week JR has chosen “Hindsight” by Jake Wesley Rodgers.

“Hindsight” is an interesting word. It means the ability to look back in time to analyze the past. When you reflect on something, when you think back on a decision or a situation from the past, you can say, “In hindsight.” So I might say, “In hindsight, moving was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.” That means, today I know moving was a lot more difficult because I can look back in time to analyze the situation.

Anyway, the song includes a common expression: “Hindsight’s 20/20.” That means you can see the past perfectly. The song is about regrets from the past. But of course, with hindsight, you know you would have done things differently.

“Hindsight” by Jake Wesley Rogers is the song of the week today. Thanks, JR.

See you next time!

And that’s all for this week’s Plain English. Congratulations on reaching the end of another great lesson, this one for Thursday, October 27, 2022. We’ll be back on Monday with more Plain English. Remember, you can get the full lesson online at PlainEnglish.com/515.

See you back here on Monday!

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Story: Asteroid hit