Latch onto

Latch onto

Today we’ve got a great phrasal verb—latch onto. Here’s how you heard it earlier in this episode. Hiroki Terai latched onto the health benefits of crying when he started his company that encourages customers to cry together while watching sad movies. He latched onto the idea. That means he attached himself to it. He grabbed onto the idea. He found the idea and wasn’t going to let it go. He latched onto it and started a whole business around this one concept .

When you latch onto an idea or a concept, you become very interested in it, and you attach yourself to it. You don’t let go it. That can be either good or bad. If you’re an entrepreneur like Mr. Terai and you latch onto an idea, that can be a good thing: you’ve found your one big idea and you’re not giving it up. It can sometimes be a criticism , though. It’s often said that the news media latches onto the most sensational stories, even if they’re not the most important.

Other times it’s neither good nor bad, but a fact of life. Do you remember the story about the young soccer players stuck in a cave in Thailand? The media latched onto that story—myself included, right? We talked about that in episode 66 at PlainEnglish.com/66. The media latched onto that story because it was dramatic and, coincidentally , happened right around the World Cup of soccer. Were there more important stories in the world? Maybe, but the public latched onto the story too—most of us in the audience wanted to know what was going on.

Sometimes a politician can latch onto an issue and not let it go. A certain American politician has latched onto the idea of a wall at the American border with Mexico. A certain Mexican politician has latched onto the idea of canceling an airport under construction. A certain Brazilian politician has latched onto the idea of giving greater access to guns to prevent violence . Good, bad, or indifferent —these politicians have latched onto these ideas: they have become interested in them, attached themselves to these issues, and they’re not letting them go.

That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget our partner MosaLingua at PlainEnglish.com/learn. And if you’d like to get even more out of Plain English, make sure you join our e-mail list by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail. You’ll get links to the English articles I use to prepare the show, plus an extra English word or phrase. PlainEnglish.com/mail. JR and I will be back on Monday with a new episode. See you then!