{"id":9005,"date":"2018-03-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plainenglish.com\/?post_type=expressions&p=9005"},"modified":"2024-11-20T23:20:08","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T05:20:08","slug":"catch-on","status":"publish","type":"expressions","link":"https:\/\/plainenglish.com\/expressions\/catch-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Catch on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catch on<\/h3>\n

Today we\u2019re going to focus on the phrasal verb \u201ccatch on.\u201d Competitive video gaming is catching on in the United States; it\u2019s becoming popular <\/span>. eSports caught on in South Korea years ago; they built their first eSports arena in 2005. I\u2019m not sure why it took so long to catch on in the United States. <\/p>\n

In some ways, competitive video gaming reminds me <\/span> of professional poker <\/span>. In the early <\/span> 2000s, people here in the United States were crazy for poker. I\u2019m not sure what caused poker to catch on here, but it was popular to play in person and online. You could even watch poker tournaments on television. Did that trend ever catch on in your country? Was poker ever that popular where you live? Even though <\/span> poker caught on pretty quickly\u2014even though it became popular quickly\u2014it didn\u2019t stay popular for long. I wonder if the same thing will happen with eSports.<\/p>\n

The other way you can use \u201ccatch on\u201d is to say someone is starting to understand something. When I started researching this episode <\/span>, I had no idea why people would watch video games played by other people. But after a few minutes, I started to catch on; I started to understand. The games are shown from a variety of camera angles, just like regular sports. And the participants can often play those same games at home\u2014also, kind of like more traditional sports like soccer. If you were a skeptic at first <\/span>, are you starting to catch on, now, too? Are you starting to see why it\u2019s popular?<\/p>\n

So, remember: if something catches on, it means it becomes popular; but when a person catches on to something, it means that person is beginning to understand <\/span>.<\/p>\n

\n

That\u2019s it for today\u2019s episode. I send out an email every Monday and Thursday morning with a summary <\/span> of the new Plain English episode and links to one or two articles that I used to prepare the show. So, if anything really catches your interest <\/span> and you want to read more about a particular topic in English, you can just follow that link for more <\/span>. I also put an explanation of one more word or phrase in each episode. If you want to get these additional resources <\/span>, head over to <\/span> PlainEnglish.com\/mail and sign up <\/span>.<\/p>\n

Thanks again for listening\u2014 we\u2019ll be back on <\/span> Thursday with another episode. See you then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When something “catches on,” it becomes popular<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"terminology_category":[79],"lesson_number":[227],"keywords":[1016,138],"content_tag":[2416],"level":[],"class_list":["post-9005","expressions","type-expressions","status-publish","hentry","terminology_category-phrasal-verb","lesson_number-227","keywords-catch","keywords-on","content_tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat does it mean to 'catch on'?<\/title>\n <!-- Mirrored from plainenglish.com/wp-json/wp/v2/expressions/9005 by HTTrack Website Copier/3.x [XR&CO'2014], Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:28:05 GMT --> <!-- Added by HTTrack --><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /><!-- /Added by HTTrack --> <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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