“Approve” or “approve of”?

“Approve” can mean something different from “approve of”.

“Approve” changes its meaning depending on whether or not we follow it with “of”.

We use approve without “of” to show that someone agrees to – or allows – something. We usually use it in an official context.

For example:

• The mayor approved the building of the new stadium.
• My boss approved my request for more pay.

When we add “of”, we get something a bit different. We use “approve of” to show that we have a positive opinion of something – we think it is good.

For example:

• My mother approves of my friends.
• I approve of her taste in music.

The difference might seem to be quite small, but consider these two sentences:

• The teacher approved that book.
• The teacher approved of that book.

The first sentence: “The teacher approved that book” might mean that the teacher agreed to the book being included in the library or that she allowed the pupil to read it. We don’t actually know whether or not she likes it.

The second sentence: “The teacher approved of that book” might mean that the teacher likes the book or that she was happy that the pupil was reading it. We don’t know whether or not she gave permission for the pupil to read it – perhaps she only found out later.

Here are another two sentences:

• The manager approved the expenditure.
• The manager approved of the expenditure.

This time the first sentence: “The manager approved the expenditure” tells us that the manager allowed someone to spend some money on something. We don’t know whether or not someone has spent the money.

The second sentence: “The manager approved of the expenditure” tells us that the manager was happy the money had been spent. We don’t know whether he had agreed in advance to it being spent or whether he knew that it was going to be spent.

“Disapprove” i the opposite of approve. Mostly, we use “disapprove” with “of”. We use it to show that we don’t like something ot think something is bad. For example:

• I disapprove of smoking.
• He disapproves of people talking during a concert.

We can use “disapprove” without “of”. But that’s usually when “of” – and perhaps the rest of the sentence – is left out but understood. For example:

• She likes to use her fingers when she is eating her pizza, but her husband disapproves.

In this case we can regard “her husband disapproves” as short for “her husband disapproves of her eating pizza with her fingers”

We can use a similar construction with “approve”:

• That boy seems to stay out late at night, does his father approve?

Here “does his father approve?” might be short for “does his father approve of his son staying out late at night?”

Posted by Graham