BE 343: Should You Use the Word Restrain or Refrain?
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This is the Business English Podcast, episode 343. Should you use the word restrain or refrain?

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That's allearsenglish.com/fluenciescore. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Doing pretty well, Michelle. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks. I'm good. So, Lindsay, do you ever refrain from talking about certain things with your family or friends? I think yes, especially in the month of November. Now I will need to refrain from politics conversations with two certain family members. Yes.

Okay. Yes, exactly. Sometimes you just need to refrain from doing something. Um, so, but yeah, today we are going to answer a really great question from a listener and we snatched this up for business because these are words that could frequently be used in the business world. So this is a great one. This is from Krishna. Okay. So I will go ahead and read our question. Kicking off with a student question.

from YouTube. Guys, don't forget, we have a whole YouTube channel, more than 200,000 subscribers over there. Go check it out. If you prefer to watch us have these conversations, we're on video. Of course, Business English does not have a YouTube channel yet, unfortunately, but All Ears English does. And we do hope to grow that YouTube channel for business soon, guys. But you can check us out on All Ears English. The All Ears English podcast is on YouTube. All right.

okay love it here we go so sri krishna says lovely episode can you guys talk about the difference between the words refrain and restrain and how to use them correctly depending on the context i love allers english from the bottom of my heart and it means the world to me thank you lindsay michelle aubrey and jessica for your hard work and contagious enthusiasm and dedication love krishna oh

that's so nice. Very nice message. Beautiful, beautiful message. Yeah. Thank you very much, Krishna. We appreciate you listening so much. Yes. And very kind words. So yeah, I did take this. I snatched it for business English. So Krishna, thanks for the topic for business English. I think this is a good one for this podcast as well. So, um,

Guys, before we get into it, we want to remind you, please hit the follow button now wherever you are listening to the Business English Podcast. Let us drop into your queue. Make sure you get all the bonus episodes that will be sent to you. So just real quick, just take your...

finger and press the button you gotta just press that button now good stuff all right michelle so let's go through let's just answer christian's question right away right what is the difference between so what is refrain let's start with refrain first okay so these this is a little bit nuanced um yeah um so but it's it's in a good way it's gonna make us think so refrain is to i found a definition of stop oneself from doing something okay

So please refrain from asking questions until the end of the presentation. Uh-huh. Yeah. Or we need to refrain from putting too much pressure on our customers during sales calls. It never works. Right. So stop doing something. Yeah. Exactly. Or I am refraining from making any more calls until I hear back about the budget.

Yes. Okay. So stop oneself from doing something. And there's also a piece of grammar here. So to refrain from something that's an intransitive verb, which means it shouldn't have an object. Now, this is different from restrain. Restrain is transitive, meaning it must have an object. Yeah.

So there's a grammar piece for this and then there's also just the general meaning. So restrain, Lindsay, what is restrain? Okay. So, well, first of all, other than being, than grammatically being different, it needs an object. We also say it's a little stronger. It's a similar idea, but it's generally more forceful or more physical.

So, for example, sometimes my boss needs to restrain herself when she gets angry. She has a bit of a temper. This kind of has more the context of holding herself back physically. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Or Lindsay, I think you'll like this one. Our company dog was in here today and saw a squirrel. We needed to restrain her from chasing. Yeah, totally. I love it when companies allow you to take your dog into work. There are some companies that do that. So fun. Yes. Yeah. So...

So again, so you can see we're taking objects here. And then, yeah, with a dog, I mean, you need to, maybe you need to get the leash out and kind of pull it back, pull the dog back a little bit. Lindsay, do you ever need to restrain Kiefer from chasing? Yeah, we had to use it. We have to use a gentle leader, which is a special leash that goes around his nose because he pulls, he just, he loves to play. And so he'll lurch after dogs and kind of growl, but it's a play growl where he signals that he wants to play.

And sometimes people are like, what's wrong with your dog? And it's just, I haven't trained him well enough to not do that. I know it's so bad. We're trying, we're trying. It's self-control. He just wants to play, you know. Oh, but he's such a,

a sweetie. He's a real sweet dog. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. You know, this idea of a dog on a leash or just keeping someone from doing something. But again, we need to have that object. Or here's another one. Oh, no, Lindsay, could you read the next one? Sure. They took her company card away because she couldn't restrain herself from overspending at conferences. That's never good. Yes. That's not good. So

In general, they do have a similar idea. Again, restraint I think is a little bit stronger. Yeah. Um, but there, you know, so the intensity might be a little bit different, but also the grammar here is very important to consider. Okay. Yeah. And just going back to the grammar structures, just to review them again, uh,

Does refrain always come with from then? Just so we can review again. Yeah. Right. Usually. I would say so. Don't you think? Yeah. Refrain from something. It feels right. It feels right. Yeah. Refrain from doing something. So it comes with from an ing. Right. So someone refrains from doing something or from making something from continuing something.

Right. And okay. So just to clarify that. Yeah. Right. And whereas restrain, a lot of times it might be restrain yourself, restrain myself, restrain, right? Yeah. Restrain someone. You don't refrain someone.

Well, I guess you can refrain. No, no, you don't say refrain someone from doing something. You would say restrain. Restrain you from doing something. Right. So I restrain you, the object, from doing something, from doing X. Yes. Interesting. So we can see that difference there. And that's important. And we'll continue to see that throughout the episode. We'll take a quick break now.

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Yeah. So, I mean, sometimes we need to use self-control or talk about stopping something or

tell someone else to stop something or to avoid something. So just in many, many ways. I mean, so this could be used to talk about budget or procedures like SOPs or what else, Lindsay? Yeah, yeah. Well, certainly budget to be a little bit more careful, have to show restraint. And maybe that's another expression that maybe we'll get to today, but maybe not, but show fiscal restraint when it comes to spending money.

SOPs are a good example. So we're not just reinventing the wheel every time. We know exactly how to do things. - Right, so you might, like in an SOP, you might see, oh, refrain from something, something, something. Right, so you might see it in there. - Sure, yeah. That would be, and that would actually signal why this is the Business English episode.

Exactly. In your business life, you might... So to up-level your language, instead of saying, don't do this, say, please refrain from doing this. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe in hiring or firing procedures, you might hear someone say, you know, we need to refrain from hiring anybody until we see the business succeed a little bit more. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That kind of like austerity sort of thing. Sure. Mm-hmm.

- Meetings, how would this apply in a meeting? Please refrain from drinking water in this room, right? Or snacking during the meeting. - Yeah, absolutely. If you need to tell someone to stop doing something or even you might say refrain before they do that, or just as a, you know. - Preventative. - Or you might say something, if you see them eating a thing of M&Ms in the meeting and you might just say, can you please refrain from eating until after the meeting, right?

Exactly. And so that way of using refrain in that little slightly more up leveled sort of more formal way could also apply to any kind of

presentation, like for example, with my meditation group, we had, this is sort of a picky thing, but for a while people were bringing in these, we'd have a snack time in between our meditation and our talk and people would get these snacks with kind of a wrapper that would make a lot of noise. And someone had to make an announcement, say, please refrain from bringing those snacks because it distracts people's meditation. I thought it was a little high maintenance, calm.

So it could be used in a, not necessarily having to be a business context is what I'm saying. Someone was just standing up and making a presentation, making a request of the group and they wanted to up-level things a little bit instead of saying, don't bring those things, right? Don't bring those snacks, right? Right, right, right, right.

Yeah. So yeah, exactly. That's important. So Lindsay, let's do a couple of questions. Have you ever had to restrain yourself from making a purchase for the business? Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I still see, you know, online courses that I want to take, coaches that I want to hire, you

Sometimes I'll end up just inadvertently on a sales call. It's very easy to end up on these sales calls, right? When you have people emailing you and I can grow your business and all these things and you end up on the call, whatever. And then at the end of the call, you're like, I really want to hire this person. Of course, like, okay, no, we have a budget. Yeah, we don't. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Yeah. And then, Lindsay, what do we want to refrain from doing when we're recording or as another...

just anything at all those English or business English. Well, we tried to refrain from eating or drinking on the call on the microphone because it shows up on the mic, right? That's definitely one thing we try to refrain from.

Big laugh. Well, we laugh. Let's not say let's not kid ourselves. We laugh on the show, which is good. Yes. Maybe lip smacking is something that we try to avoid because that's really bad for the mic. I try to refrain from saying the word like too often. So listen, I could say

I try to refrain from saying the word like, or I could say, sometimes I have to restrain myself from saying the word like, and both would be fine. And it just indicates when you add that extra level of energy, restrain myself, it's just indicating you really want to say that word.

Right, exactly. It's a more of a physical, like a visceral feeling with that. But yeah, most of the time you can say both, right? You can say both. It's just we need to get the grammar right. Okay, so in the roleplay, guys, pay special attention to the grammar differences here, right? We want to make sure we get this by the end of the episode. So in this roleplay, what are we doing, Michelle? Okay, so we are going over some upcoming policies at work. We're co-workers. Okay, here we go.

So I know we've been a little loosey-goosey with the budget lately. Oh, yeah. Do you think we should tell the team to refrain from making purchases until they check with us? Hmm. I don't want to micromanage, but...

but it seems like sometimes they can't restrain themselves, especially when it comes to those lunch meetings with clients. It's just too over the top. I agree. Yeah. We're tightening our belts here. Yes. Uh, yeah. So I said, do you think we should tell the team to refrain from making purchases? So again, refrain from doing something, refrain from plus ING.

Okay. And then I said, I don't want to micromanage, but it seems like sometimes they can't restrain themselves. It's like, you could also say they can't help themselves. Oh, that'd be a good one. That's another one you could say. So yeah, here we have restrain and then with the object. Yep, exactly. And again, different grammatical setup could potentially mean the same thing, but could be a

- Slightly different meaning depending on how much energy, you know, with restraint that extra, they really love those lunches.

they just can't help themselves. They just succumb to their temptations, right? They just want to get this great lunch out. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Like you might, you might, or like, let's say you're at a business lunch or, or you're at it just even outside of business, of course. And either there's a cookie or fries or something that you're trying not to eat. And you might just say, Oh, I just can't restrain myself. Give me the cookie. I can't help myself. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. Like they come and they offer you dessert at the table. I just can't restrain myself. Yeah, I have to get dessert. Yes. Michelle, what's another episode we've done recently that our listeners should check out?

Yeah, guys, listen to episode 329 of the Business English podcast. That's I Can't Wait to Meet You in Person. Yeah, that was a good one. We talked about what can you say to your coworkers when maybe there's an upcoming retreat, company retreat or conference where you're going to meet your coworkers for the first time in person. Maybe you got your job during COVID or work from home. It's a permanent work from home scenario and you just meet four times a year. What do you say in anticipation of that moment? Okay.

What's the takeaway today, Michelle? Yeah, well, I think we made it pretty clear. You know, thinking about, you know, refrain from an I-N-G. Mm-hmm.

Whereas restrain, we need an object. So we've gone over the grammar today that you need, but we've also gone over the slight differences in meaning. So definitely give this a try. It's good to use for the workplace. It's also good for outside of the workplace. But let us know how it goes. All right. Sounds good, Michelle. You have a good rest of your day and I'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye, Lindsay. Bye. Bye.

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