• 
• 

"Impulse buying" or "impulse buy" refers to a kind of spending behaviour. Now, I am sure many of you have been in this situation before: you go to Chatuchak Market just to window shop and suddenly you see a T-shirt and feel you must buy it. You end up buying it even though you did not plan to. This is called impulse buying or an impulse buy.

In supermarkets, many types of merchandise are strategically displayed at the end of an aisle to inspire impulse buying.  

George admitted that the remote-control plane was an impulse buy; he couldn't resist his childhood dream.  

A more conscious buy is when you "buy into" a business or organisation; it means you buy part of it for a reason, for example to gain control over it. A good example of this phrasal verb is the headline: "SIA, Temasek buy into airline".

The following lead paragraph will give you a clearer picture of what the headline means.

"Singapore Airlines and the city-state's Temasek Holdings have signed a final agreement to buy 24 per cent in China Eastern Airlines, the nation's third-largest carrier, the firms said at the weekend."

"A real-estate tycoon has tried to buy into a popular e-commerce website to no avail."

And we all know that many of the phrasal verbs convey more that one meaning. We can use "buy into something" to show disapprovingly that someone completely believes in a set of ideas.

"Who would buy into this undemocratic plan to power?"

People do not buy only things but also people. They use money to pay someone to stop causing them trouble, or basically "buy that person off".

"Chatree bought his maid off so she would not tell his wife that he had taken another woman home when she (his wife) was on a business trip."

In business when you buy a part of a business or building because you want to own all of it, we say that you "buy somebody out". 

"If Nathan manages to buy out this new shopping complex, he will be able to control the entire retail business in this town."

This is different from when you "buy yourself out" of the army; it is still the same way of using money to rid oneself of trouble, but this time you spend the money in exchange to leave earlier from the army than you had previously agreed to.    

"Somchai spent fifty thousand baht to buy himself out of conscription."

Complete the sentences using the expressions explained:

1. It's worrying that our executives ... this nonsensical idea.

2. Our financial adviser suggested that our company …this group of small companies, but I don't quite agree.

3. Mike was not very successful in … himself … of the army.

4. The National Trust has been trying to … the historic mansion from its current owner.

5. The janitor found Sam secretly copying some information from the boss's computer, so Sam … him … hoping that he would keep quite, but he was wrong.

Answers: 1. bought into, 2. buy into, 3. buying…out, 4. buy out, 5. bought…off

By Parnsap Yomanage