This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1884.
Allow this vocabulary to boost your business English.
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Forbid, disallow, prohibit and deny.
You might think these all mean the same thing, but they do have subtle differences.
Listen in today for a high level vocabulary tip that you can use when talking to government officials or with your native speaking friends.
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What's going on, Aubrey?
How are you?
I'm great, Lindsay.
I have a question for you.
OK, this is a tricky one.
I actually saw this quiz on TikTok and only maybe one to five percent of native English speakers got it right.
So don't be upset if you get it wrong.
I'm ready.
I'm ready, there's a lot on the line here.
Let's do it.
There's a lot on the line okay, the question is, what is the opposite of allow, the verb allow?
And here are your options a forbid, B disallow, C prohibit or D deny.
Okay Oh, this is tricky.
This is hard because I would say I would say they're almost what they all mean.
They're all very synonymous.
Oh, wow.
I'm going to learn a lot today because to me, these all are the opposite of allow my hands that way.
Right.
When you first look at them, only one is definitely opposite of allow.
And I'm sure it's a trick question, right?
We're going back to the original meaning of allow or the true meaning of allow, I'm sure.
No, it's not a trick question.
I love that you would expect that of me.
All right.
But I'm going to use the process of elimination here.
So I'm going to eliminate deny because it doesn't quite mean the same thing, right?
It's not an exact...
Opposite.
So that's good.
So then I have forbid, disallow or prohibit.
I think it's between forbid or prohibit.
And I'm going to say prohibit.
You're so close.
You did get it down to the 50-50.
You needed to phone a friend.
You needed to use the eliminate one of the 50-50.
You're so close.
It's forbid, but I didn't realize that either.
I looked at all four of these and same as you, I thought these all mean don't allow, right?
Yeah.
What is the difference?
Because it is a little bit subtle, but they do each have more specific meanings.
They do.
You guys.
I'm so excited for you because you can, after this episode, you'll be able to ask your native English speaking friends this question and stump them, because very few of them will get it right.
They won't know.
They won't know.
It's so good.
It's so good guys, this is fun.
We're gonna learn this together today, right?
So we're gonna learn in parallel.
So let's go into it Aubrey, so are we gonna figure out what the key differences are here between these four words?
Wow okay yes, I know.
So interesting right, I love this.
I know you guys love vocabulary.
This is very high level um, but just fascinating.
And The thing is, you can't always trust the thesaurus.
We talk about this over on IELTS Energy, Jessica and I.
If you guys are preparing for IELTS, make sure to follow that podcast, because often a mistake that IELTS students will make is they'll take a word from the thesaurus and use it to mean something that it actually doesn't mean, because it'll be like a synonym in certain contexts, but in other contexts it does not mean the same thing.
So you have to be careful.
You can't just find your parallels, your synonyms, from the thesaurus.
You have to learn what they mean in different contexts.
All right, let's get into it then, in that case good, so let's go straight to forbid.
So, all right, what so?
What does this mean?
Yeah, it means to not allow.
This was the winning answer.
This is the winning answer.
Right, forbid is the opposite of allow.
It means to not allow.
Okay, so you would like you could say she forbids her children to eat dessert.
That means she does not allow her children to eat dessert.
But here's what's interesting about the word forbid.
It's a little harsh, it's a little extreme.
I would never say i forbid my children to eat.
I would just say you can't have dessert or yeah, i don't let my children have dessert.
We really avoid using forbid because it's so extreme.
It's so harsh.
It might be a little bit old fashioned or too formal.
It makes me think.
So right now I'm watching Handmaid's Tale.
Did I tell you this before?
I love that show.
Oh, it's so intense.
Honestly, it's hard to watch.
It is really, really hard to watch if you guys haven't.
Disturbing.
It's not, yeah, right.
It's not taking us back into the past.
It's like an alternate universe where, if something had happened politically, something else would happen.
But I imagine them using that in that show, right?
They're in traditional dress.
It feels like they're in the 1800s, but they're not right.
So i forbid you.
Right, you cannot do that.
A lot of things are forbidden.
Right, it's a dystopian.
So you hear utopia for like an ideal world.
Dystopia is the opposite of that.
It's like a worst case scenario for maybe something post-apocalyptic.
So that'll definitely be in the app, you guys.
Dystopian because that's such an interesting word.
Yeah, it's crazy.
So check out this show if you can handle it.
I don't know, be ready, have a glass of wine, maybe?
Yeah, all right.
Well, what's interesting about forbid is that we do use it jokingly.
I use it jokingly a lot.
I might say i forbid you to eat any more cookies because i want the cookies.
Right, we will say say this for humor, to be funny, telling someone we forbid them something that we're not really allowed to forbid them to do.
Right, I love it.
So what's the recommendation for our listeners here?
Should they use this only just in the joking sense, if they're having Fun, but generally not really using it in terms of telling people what they can't do?
Right.
Because it's kind of old fashioned out of style.
Yeah, exactly.
Very much so.
Right.
This does mean the opposite of allow.
But there are other ways that natives are, especially in conversation.
We're just going to say, I can't do that.
You can't do that instead of I forbid it.
OK, I love it. then okay number two disallow now i see why it's not the opposite of allow if we look at the definition right which is to refuse to declare valid okay that's different from saying i allow this exactly so here's some good examples right the judge disallowed her testimony So it isn't about not allowing, it's that there is something that exists and you are not going to declare it as valid or accept it as valid. okay so it's it's involving a more formal scenario like a process an institutional scenario the evidence was disallowed in court in the institution of the court right right and that might be because the police didn't have a warrant something like that right so the evidence exists but the court is not seeing it as valid for some reason that makes sense and what's the third example So this is in sports.
You'll hear this a lot.
The official should disallow the goal because like, maybe there was a goal, but oh, there was a penalty or something.
So they're going to disallow it.
They're not going to see it as valid.
Right.
So this really isn't something that you're going to have in your conversation necessarily.
It's probably more something you're going to see on the news or read in a newspaper about official proceedings.
Now you know what it means.
And it's fascinating if you ask a native speaker this question, they will often choose disallow, because we have that prefix dis.
Yeah.
And we think, oh, that means the opposite.
That must be right.
Oh, this is a really tricky one.
English.
So rude.
So unfair to us like this.
Right.
But like, you know, you take the SAT, you understand the tricks and traps that these tests have.
Right.
You know, it's not that easy.
It's not that easy.
So let's go into the third one, prohibit.
And this is again, if you understand the definition, you realize it means a little something different.
It's to officially forbid something by law or rule.
I can't say I prohibit my children from eating dessert.
There's no official law or rule there.
But I could say drinking alcohol is prohibited in the United States if you're under the age of 21.
Yeah.
And that was in my head when I was choosing prohibited.
I thought there might be a reason why this could be wrong.
And it was.
I was envisioning a sign in a bar, an official sign in a bar, that says it's prohibited to drink if you're under 21.
So that means official laws, things that are written on signs on walls, right, that kind of thing.
And you can see why.
Even native speakers make this mistake because they can be.
Oh, that means drinking is not allowed in here.
You don't think about, okay, let's see, what's the actual nuance of this word?
It means there's an official rule or law.
Exactly.
Or you may see this as like a no trespassing sign on a fence.
Prohibited entry prohibited official entry prohibited without official documentation, or something like that right.
Yes, definitely.
Or we might say the company's HR policy prohibits harassment, something like that, right?
It doesn't necessarily have to be an official law.
If it's a policy, some kind of rule, you can say something is prohibited, and then there's kind of a second meaning here, right for it, which is to make something impossible.
So this is more conversational right, aubrey?
Yes right, you might say uh, the high walls of the pr, the prison, prohibit escape.
Okay, that it makes escape impossible Still sounds formal to me, though.
Definitely.
Very high level.
But we wouldn't use this at work, right?
If we might say, you know, limited funds are prohibiting our success, right?
It means it's making it impossible way.
I actually use this more.
I don't use it in this way.
I use the word prohibitive.
It's prohibitive like we talk about inflation happening right now in the us.
It's getting pretty bad.
We thought it was going to get better in august and then we see the data from august it's gotten worse right so the cost of eating out has almost become prohibitive for a lot of americans.
That I use in conversation more than the word prohibit.
Yeah.
Yes.
I use that adjective, meaning like something is being made impossible because of something else.
Ooh, good point.
That's very native and natural to call something prohibitive.
Yeah.
OK, Aubrey, so now let's move into our number four here, that fourth word.
Our listeners are going to be so good at vocabulary by the time we finish today.
Better than most natives.
This one, most native speakers, at least a lot in what I saw, chose deny.
Because you can see that doesn't that mean to not allow, but just like you said, Lindsay, right?
It has a little bit of a different meaning.
Right.
It's opposite is approve.
So it means to refuse to approve or grant something and it really helps to think about like an insurance claim or a bond.
You would say you approve it or you deny it.
You wouldn't say you allow it, right.
This implies kind of a process, an approval process, right.
A system, a process, right.
So you know.
He denied her the chance to interview for the job right, yes.
Another one she was denied access to the company's intranet, meaning like your in interior internet network Yes.
Oh, my God.
They're so subtly different, but they're a little bit different.
Let's show our listeners in a role play where these might come up, shall we?
Yeah.
So in this role play, we're chatting about your dog, Kiefer.
Kiefer.
Yeah.
You know, it's so funny.
A lot of people think his name is Keeper with a P. Right.
Keeper.
When I pass people in the park, they're like, oh, Keeper.
That's such a cute name.
Like it's not, it's Kiefer Kiefer and it actually means uh it in Gaelic, I guess it means cherished.
Actually, I just found that out, so I love that.
I assume you named him after Kiefer Sutherland.
Yeah, I know, but I kind of love keeper, to be like he's a keeper.
We use that to say something that we would want to keep.
It's kind of adorable.
It's really tacky adorable, but tacky yeah, yeah.
Yeah, all right, here we go, here we go, all right, i'll start us out.
Are there any rules you've had to establish for your puppy?
Definitely oh, we forbid him to jump on the furniture, does he obey?
Sometimes he would try to jump up, but we've always denied access.
What fun places are you able to take him?
Unfortunately, dogs are prohibited at our favorite pub.
Oh no, you should submit a formal petition for them to change their rules.
Unfortunately, I think they disallow it.
Ooh, sounds very formal.
Formal conversation.
Yeah, some of these words are a little formal.
So it was tricky to try and sort of force them into a role play, a conversation we might actually have because yeah, we can point those out as we go along.
You know, I probably wouldn't say, you probably wouldn't say we forbid him to jump.
Maybe if you're joking, we forbid him to jump on the furniture.
You'd probably just be like we don't let him.
We don't let him jump on the furniture.
Yeah for sure, for sure.
These words, i feel like, would be like you'd be more likely to use them in a conversation if you have to call the police department or talk with a lawyer or something like that.
Right, very official, yes for sure, okay.
So i said definitely.
You said are there any rules you've had to establish for your puppy?
Definitely, we forbid him to jump on the furniture, as you said aubry, what's next?
And then you were saying he would try to jump up, but we've always denied access.
And this is the meaning, right?
To refuse to grant him access.
And maybe you would say it formally like this sort of to be funny, but we really would probably just say but we've never let him right.
So he'd try to jump up, but we don't let him.
Yeah, I think people might say this in a funny way though, like access denied right, like you might be joking around and trying to act like a robot or something.
People make jokes like that.
They act weird sometimes like that, using that phrase, for sure, but just in like everyday conversation we, we would take, we would remove these sort of more formal words.
Yeah, i agree yeah, we don't.
We don't let him, we don't let him, okay.
And then you said dogs are prohibited at our favorite pub.
Because you maybe say we probably wouldn't in this case say you know, dogs are not allowed, or they don't let dogs in.
They don't let dogs in yeah, meaning you definitely could say dogs are prohibited there, exactly.
I mean, the good news is that here in Colorado it's a very dog friendly state.
Most people can bring their pups to a brewery and hang out outdoors.
They're not prohibited in very many places.
No, it's great, not inside, but yeah, outside for sure.
And then to use disallow, i said oh, you should do a formal petition.
And he said yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
So this is good because we're showing you an example, we're bringing it into a casual conversation, but out in the real world guys, this would yeah, this would happen more.
And let's say you have you, let's say you get called in for jury duty and you can test that and you have to call, and that would be where these would come up, something like that right definitely, you might get disallowed as a juror yeah, or yeah, your excuse is disallowed or something.
Right oh, it's so interesting i think this is.
It is going to be really helpful for you guys to understand these when you do see them in the news on tv and especially, you know true crime shows.
You're going to see all of these, like you said, in a courtroom, but definitely don't stress about using the right one.
And often you're going to want to choose more like natives to say something like I.
Don't let them do that.
I don't let them do it.
Yeah, very simple.
I love it.
So guys, yeah, don't be afraid to kind of stump your native speaker friends.
If you're in the right mood, maybe you're joking around, having fun with the person.
You're on a good level.
I would love that.
Pop this quiz on them, right?
Just have fun with it.
Why not?
Why not?
So good.
That was so fun.
Awesome.
This was really fun.
Yeah, good stuff.
And guys, if you want more great episodes from All Ears English, remember we publish four days a week, if not more.
So go over and hit follow on All Ears English.
All right.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
I'll see you next time.
Talk soon.
Bye.
Bye.
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