Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
E. Roosevelt
You often hear people who use the word “discuss” with the preposition “about” that follows it. Is this correct? According to The BBI Combinatory Dictionary, “discuss about” is not possible. Similarly, according to The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, we cannot say “discuss about something”: So a sentence like “I will discuss about this problem with my colleauges.” will be incorrect. Other possible combinations of discuss can be as follows: discuss with; discuss something with somebody; discuss how (why, who, when et cetera) + sentence.
If you want to use the word “about” , you may use the noun form of the word, which is discussion: “We will have a discussion about the problems of poor people in the region.” Also, we can “have a conversation about”, “confer about“, “debate about” but “not” discuss about. Here are more examples: 1. We will have a meeting next month to discuss the matter. 2. They cannot discuss every little detail in such a short period of time. 3. Türkiye proposes that we need to discuss the causes and consequences of Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis. 4. Here is an exception because “about” has a different meaning here: “On average, she finds that people discuss [about] a dozen brands every day.” Note that the preposition “about” in this sentence means “approximately“.
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