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I would like to know if it is correct to say:

we submerge into current affairs such politics, humans rights, economic indicators and...

I am not completely sure if this is possible, and I wish to convey the idea of being immersed in discussion in a productive way.

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    Perhaps you could expand your question a little bit to explain the context? Are you talking about a conversation? or is current affairs the person's work?
    – Roger Sinasohn
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 16:45
  • Into doesn't even make it into the top 10 as a preposition after submerge. From NGrams, in descending order of popularity, the most likely prepositions are in, by, under, beneath, during, when, to, below, at,... But in and of itself, that doesn't make the cited usage "wrong". Opinions may differ on this point, of course - which is why I think there's no real "right answer" here.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 17:17
  • I find nothing wrong with submerge into when it is used in a literal sense. I will submerge myself into this tub of water. But it's seldom used in a figurative sense. (I disagree that it has to be in rather than into in the water example; I think that's just a matter of common usage. And I've heard both. In fact, personally, into sounds more natural. But I agree that it's subjective.)
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 18:13
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    The verb "submerge" will not take "into", even metaphorically. We can "submerge something in water" - meaning to cover it in water - and we can "put/drop the thing "into" water". But we submerge, or immerse "in water" - not "into". Those two last verbs refer to the position of the item once it has entered the liquid, not the act of getting it in. Hence "into" is inappropriate.
    – WS2
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 18:37
  • There is nothing at all wrong with the usage you propose.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 21:52

4 Answers 4

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the English idiom to dive in may be helpful. TFD

To begin or undertake something quickly, enthusiastically, and without trepidation.

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You can only submerge yourself in something, and it’s ‘in’, not into.

You could say ‘we submerge ourselves in current affairs such as politics, humans rights, economic indicators and...‘

Although your own word, in your question, immerse, could also be used, and might be better (also with ‘in’).

Etymology:

Submerge is from Latin, submergere, from sub- ‘under’ + mergere ‘to dip’.

Immerse is also Latin, immers- ‘dipped into’, from the verb immergere, from in- ‘in’ + mergere ‘to dip’.

Usage:

So with submerge, you can imply that we are deeply in something, like water, with it over our heads. This might be good if you wish to convey that the result is overwhelming.

With immerse, you can imply that we have been dipped into something - like a corn chip well-soaked in hummous. This might be good to use if you want to say that we ‘learned a lot’ - as in ‘immersion courses’. ‘We were immersed in Russian for a week, and learned a lot’.

https://online.prepositionary.com/submerge.htm

(Note - you also need an ‘as’ in your original quote, as I have shown above).

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If you are talking about a discussion, you could say we became engrossed in current affairs. From the Oxford Dictionaries:

engrossed

ADJECTIVE

[predicative] Having all one's attention or interest absorbed by someone or something.

‘they seemed to be engrossed in conversation’

You could also phrase it as we were engrossed in current affairs, depending on context.

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You can submerge into a conversation, but you can only get consumed by it.

Submerged is placement of you, under water in a topic. But you can be choked, consumed and wet from it.

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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consumed

: to engage fully : engross

consumed with curiosity

Same meaning, different way of expressing it

We submerged ourselves in topics

and

got completely consumed with current affairs such as politics, humans rights, economic indicators and..

It feels better to use consumed rather then engrossed, but they have the same meaning. so that would be depending on what you prefer i guess.

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