Know your English | What is the difference between ‘cut down’ and ‘cut out’?

“Come on in! How was dinner? Was it as fancy as you’d expected it to be?”

“The venue was great! Fancy lighting and what not. As for the food, most of us toyed with it.”

“Toyed with it? You mean that you threw it around because it was bad?”

“No, no! When you toy with your food, you move the items on the plate around, but don’t really eat. You take a bite every now and then, but you show no enthusiasm to eat.”

“Is it because the food is no good? If that’s the case….”

“It could be that! Or it could be that you’re not focussed on what you’re eating. Perhaps your mind is on something else.”

“I see. I toy with my food whenever I’m worried about something.”

“Many of us do that! The expression can be used other objects as well. When you toy with a pencil, for example, what you’re doing is moving it around with your finger in an absent-minded manner.”

“In other words, you’re thinking about something else while you’re rolling it.”

“Exactly! Whenever Jai gets nervous, he toys with his collar button.”

“I’ve seen him do that quite often. Are you still hungry? Would you like to have…”

“Yes, I am! Do you have anything that I can wolf down?”

“Wolf down? What are you talking about?”

“When you ‘wolf down’ a pizza, you eat it very quickly. You are very hungry, and as a result, you gulp down the slices as quickly as possible. You’re not…”

“In other words, you bite off big chunks of the pizza and swallow.”

“Very good! You eat very quickly, and don’t really worry about table manners.”

“In other words, one eats like a wolf. How about this example? I rushed to the station after wolfing down a masala dosa and a plate of vada.”

“Sounds good! You have to remember that this expression, like ‘toy with’ is mostly used in informal contexts. Dev is someone who takes his time over a meal. He doesn’t wolf things down.”

“The children wolfed down the pastries that the parents had bought for tomorrow’s party.”

“I’m starving. Do you have anything that I can wolf down?”

“I have some ice cream and a couple of pastries in the fridge. Interested?”

“The doctor has asked me to cut out pastries from my diet.”

“Cut out? Does it have the same meaning as ‘cut down’?”

“No. The two mean something very different. When you ‘cut down on’ something, what you’re doing is reducing the quantity that you eat. For example, when you say that you’ve cut down on the chappathis you have at night, what you mean…”

“You don’t eat the same number of chappathis that you used to earlier. You have reduced the number of chappathis that you eat.”

“That’s right! But you still eat chappathis. You haven’t stopped eating them. When you ‘cut out’ chappathis from your diet, what it means is that you’ve stopped eating them completely. They are no longer a part of your diet. Perhaps your doctor has asked you to stop eating them for health reasons.”

“Being a diabetic, the doctor has asked me to cut sugar out altogether.”

“I have a sweet tooth. I may be able to cut down on my sugar. But cut out…never!”

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Published - September 23, 2024 08:30 am IST