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Phrase: Put a stop to (something)
People in authority are usually the ones who put a stop to something when they want to prevent it from continuing or happening in the first place.
Often when we are young, our parents put a stop to something we are doing because it is dangerous.
These days though, governments are working hard to end many things, and not all are bad.
Just the other day, the American government decided to put a stop to international students studying in the country if all of their classes were online.
Universities are desperately trying to find a way to enable students to study at a high level and be safe from contracting coronavirus.
Online courses would go a long way toward putting a stop to contracting COVID-19.
Then we have the Hong Kong situation.
With the enactment of a new law against “subversion,” the Chinese government has put a stop to all protests for and discussion about democracy in one fell swoop.
The world has done nothing.
I might add just as the world did nothing while Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
It’s incredible how easily countries can use a health crisis to do things that would never be acceptable under normal circumstances.
Hitler took power under a ‘crisis,’ and we all know how well that turned out.
Yes, we should put a stop to gun violence, violence against women and racism.
Those are things that should end.
We should also strive to put a stop to dictatorship and anti-democratic actions, but we seem to be less enthusiastic about doing so.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13-14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 64.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.