Thursday, April 13, 2017

The VOCABULARY of POSITION: (to) STEP DOWN (from)

Can you keep up with all the changes in the Trump administration?

Many people, myself included, are having difficulty doing this. News analysts are also having trouble keeping up with the resignations and firings.

Let's see why! Let's start with 2019:

Schiff calls on Barr to step down


Here's the first paragraph from that news article. Which word describes what "step down" means?

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Wednesday called on Attorney General William Barr to resign after it was revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller believed the chief law enforcement officer publicly misrepresented the findings of the Russia probe.
Of course (to) step down means to resign from a position to which you were appointed or elected, often with outside pressure. 

We can also go back in time:





In the sentence above, we can see it as an intransitive verb. There is no object, and the verb + preposition always remain together.

Reading the news article, who was this chief digital officer? What was his role in the White House? Why did he step down?

When the sentence includes the job or responsibility of importance that the person formerly had, we use the preposition from, as in the sentence "A source familiar with Lansing’s departure said the former Hill employee stepped down from the office in mid-February. But Lansing isn't the only person who has stepped down so far.

Let's see what others we can find:




Why did Nunes, who is now under investigation himself, step down?  Who took his place?

Here's one more headline and this was very big news on TV and in the print media:




Why did Michael Flynn step down?\ o far we\x27ve seen this used in regard to political office. But the expression can be used for business positions as well. And it doesn't always refer to a scandal. Here are some examples:




Why did this headline say 'step down as" and not 'step down from..."?

If you can say "He stepped down from his position as Chairman" or "She will step down from her job as Advisor" but "She stepped down as Advisor to the President." Notice that Howard Schultz took a different position in the same company.

What position at Starbucks did he take?

These are but a few of the people who are stepping down. No wonder the news is difficult to keep up with!

If that's not enough for you, here is one more headline:


The day Paul Manafort stepped down, he received $13 million from Donald Trump's associates


Let's see who else steps down from the Trump administration by the time of our next blog post! Any guesses?

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