Learn how to use the verb "Deliver"
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| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Know Your Verbs. |
| My name is Alisha, and in this lesson, we're going to talk about the verb "deliver." |
| Let's get started! |
| Let's begin with the basic definition of the verb "deliver." |
| The basic definition is "to take something from one person and give it to another person." |
| Some examples: |
| "FedEx delivered my package today!" |
| "He delivers pizzas 3 nights a week." |
| Now, let's look at the conjugations for this verb. |
| Present: deliver, delivers |
| Past: delivered |
| Past Participle: delivered |
| Progressive: delivering |
| Now, let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb. |
| The first additional meaning is "to give birth" or "to help someone give birth." |
| Let's start with some examples: |
| "Our doctor has safely delivered many babies." |
| "The mother delivered twins!" |
| So, this use of the verb "deliver" refers specifically to childbirth. Sometimes, the verb is used to talk about someone like a doctor or a nurse or a midwife or other helper aiding a mother in giving birth to children. In that case, we see sentences like the first example sentence, "Our doctor has safely delivered many babies." That means the doctor has assisted in the birth of many different babies, has assisted in "safely" is probably the keyword here, but safely delivered, safely helped many babies into the world. |
| The second example sentence; however, is focused on the mother. So, "The mother delivered twins" means the mother gave birth to twins. So, "deliver" refers to giving birth in that sentence. |
| So, depending on the subject of the sentence, it can mean either helping someone give birth or actually giving birth, when we're talking about the mother, usually. So, "deliver" can refer to both of these things, but they're both related to childbirth, childcare. |
| Let's go on the second additional meaning for this lesson. The second additional meaning for "deliver" is "to speak or to sing," especially when directed at somebody. |
| Let's look at some examples: |
| "Martin Luther King Jr delivered a moving speech in Washington D.C." |
| "The judge is delivering the verdict later today." |
| So, both of these example sentences show kind of a formal event. |
| The first example sentence refers to a very famous speech. |
| The second example sentence refers to a formal situation, like a courtroom where a judge is delivering, as in the example sentence, a verdict. A verdict means a choice, a legal choice or a legal decision, really. |
| So, in the first example sentence, "Martin Luther King Jr delivered a speech," it means spoke, yes, but there's usually some kind of, like big intention. There's a specific aim behind the words. We could also use it to talk about singing, like delivered an amazing performance, for example, if you're talking about maybe opera, just to give an example, but there's kind of some large aim, some purpose, some big like intention for the performance, in the case of singing, or for the words, in the case of speaking. |
| So, in the first example sentence, we see that it's a speech, it's an important speech we're talking about. So, "Martin Luther King Jr delivered an important speech." We could say "gave an important speech," yes, but using "deliver" kind of upgrades the formality, upgrades the seriousness of the situation. |
| The second example sentence, about the judge delivering a verdict, we see that choice of "deliver" there because it's a formal situation, again. We could say the judge gave the verdict or the judge provided the verdict as well, but "deliver is like the judge is sort of passing the information in a formal manner. This is kind of the nuance of the word choice "deliver" here. So you can see "deliver" used to talk about communication in formal and kind of important situations in this way. |
| Let's go on to the next additional meaning for this verb. |
| The next additional meaning is "to produce results as promised." |
| Let's start with some examples: |
| "I'm not sure they're going to deliver on time." |
| "They delivered on their promises!" |
| So, this use of the verb "deliver" means to provide something that's expected, like there's some order or there's some request that has been made and that needs to be fulfilled, so someone needs to keep their promise. That's the feeling of this use of "deliver." |
| So, in the first example sentence, we see, "I'm not sure they're going to deliver on time" means I'm not sure they're going to keep their promise on time, like maybe the schedule has changed, some problem has arisen, we don't know, but "I'm not sure they're going to deliver" means I'm not sure they're going to complete the thing they said they would complete in the timeframe we agreed upon. So, I'm not sure they're going to finish. I'm not sure they're going to be able to do the thing they said they would do on time. |
| The second example sentence is more positive though, "They delivered on their promises!" Here, past tense, "delivered." So, they were able to do the things that they promised to. So there was a promise made in the past, there was some agreement reached in the past, and the agreement or the promise was fulfilled. They delivered on their promises. They were able to do the things they said they would do. |
| Let's continue to the next additional meaning for the verb "deliver." |
| The next additional meaning is "to save someone from something." |
| Let's start with some examples: |
| "Deliver us from evil." |
| "The rescue team delivered people from danger." |
| A key point about this meaning of the verb "deliver" is that it's rather formal and perhaps even biblical. Biblical means it relates to the Bible. So, if you have read the Bible or if you're familiar with some of the prayers or some of the ways of speaking from the Bible, you might be familiar with this use that we see in the first example sentence, "Deliver us from evil." So, "Deliver us from evil" means save us from evil, save us from evil things. |
| So, "deliver" in this way is not so commonly used in everyday speech. If you attend church or if you attend another kind of religious or maybe religiously-related organization, you might hear this use of deliver there, in your community. |
| In general, however, in the news, we don't use the verb "deliver" to talk about saving or maybe even rescuing people. In those cases, like I said, save and rescue are more common. "Deliver" tends to be used more like in biblical context. |
| The second example sentence like, "The rescue team delivered the people from danger," that's kind of, I'm kind of stretching the meaning of that one a little bit. That might not be such a typical example, but it's sort of the kind of situation that you could imagine "deliver" being used in. So, if I were writing a report or if I were making the news for today, I probably would not use "deliver" in that way, but the meaning is still communicated there. |
| So, "deliver" tends to be used in, like serious situations, like "Deliver us from evil." Evil is quite serious or to deliver someone from danger or from a very stressful situation. So, it tends to be something more serious in nature. But like I said, "deliver" is not used so commonly in this way in everyday speech. You might hear it more in, like specific religious organizations. |
| Let's continue on to some variations for the verb "deliver." |
| The first variation is "to deliver a blow." |
| To deliver a blow |
| This means to have a damaging effect on something. |
| Some examples: |
| "She delivered a blow to the company when she announced her decision." |
| "The team scored another goal, delivering a blow to their opponents." |
| Okay. So, "to deliver a blow" means like to cause some damage or to cause some harm, but this doesn't usually mean physically. It's more like mental or emotional damage. |
| In the first example sentence, "She delivered a blow to the company with her decision," that means she made a decision and that somehow damaged her company. So maybe she was like the CEO or a top management person at her company. She decides to quit and she's a very valuable worker, so it's damaging to the company. Physically, not damaging, but the company loses something important. So, we can say, "She delivered a blow to the company," she caused damage, or she had, like a damaging effect on the company as a result of her decision. So, she delivered a blow, we could say. |
| In the second example sentence, we see it in a sports situation. So, Team A scored another goal, so we see another goal, meaning there was a previous goal or goals already, but the team scored another goal and delivered a blow to their opponent, so Team B. So that means Team A, their score went up and Team B's maybe motivation or morale was damaged. So, "deliver a blow," again, doesn't mean physically attacking someone. It means that there's some kind of damage, usually, like kind of a mental or emotional damage. In this case, perhaps, motivation-related damage occurs. |
| So "to deliver a blow" can mean to cause damage to someone or something, like an organization or a company. |
| Let's go on to the second variation for this verb which is "to deliver the goods." |
| To deliver the goods |
| This is a very informal and very casual expression that means "to give the things that have been promised." |
| Examples: |
| "I'm not sure they're going to be able to deliver the goods on time." |
| "You have to be prepared to deliver the goods if you wanna work here." |
| So, both of these refer to some kind of service or some kind of goods, some kind of like, there's items of some kind being provided. So, you will hear this perhaps in movies and in TV shows. This is a very, very, very casual expression that sometimes has the nuance of maybe activities that aren't legal. So, it could refer to like...like drugs or medication that's illegally obtained, or to some other kind of substance, or some other kind of...like stolen goods, for example. There's something that you don't want to say specifically like what it is, so we say, "deliver the goods." |
| So, "the goods" can mean any number of things. "Deliver the goods" means, like give the things that are promised like we talked about in one of the additional meanings. But it's like, you have to promise to provide the things you say you're going to provide. So, it has a little bit of kind of a dark feeling about it, I think. Sometimes, we may casually use this expression among friends now and then with various, like small situations like, "Deliver the goods!" like the party supplies, for example. But in more situations, it can refer to maybe not completely legal activities, to deliver the goods. |
| Okay. So, those are a few, hopefully, new ways to use the verb "deliver." If you have any questions or comments or if you know a different way of using the verb "deliver," please feel free to let us know in the comment section of this video |
| Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and we'll see you again next time. Bye-bye! |
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