You Don’t Divest From a Company

The word “divest” is often misused.

In the debate about whether colleges should invest in entities based in Israel, many people use the phrase “divest from companies.”

This phrase is wrong, as the Wall Street Journal notes. (And not just because singling out the only democracy in the Mideast is revoltingly anti-Semitic.)

It’s wrong because “divest” takes the preposition “of.” So, you’ll want to say “divest yourself of investments in companies.”

It’s a mouthful, but at least you’ll be grammatical.