MEPX
Chapter 6 of 10All chapters
  1. 1What an idiom is
  2. 2Where they come from
  3. 3Idioms at work
  4. 4Learning them
  5. 5Across languages
  6. 6Phrasal verbs
  7. 7Proverbs and sayings
  8. 8Regional variation
  9. 9Common mangles
  10. 10Using idioms well

Chapter 6 of 10

Phrasal verbs

The other hard part.

Why they are difficult

A verb plus a particle changes meaning entirely: give up, give in, give out, give away. There is no reliable pattern, so each must be learned separately.

  • Some separate, some do not: turn it off works, look it after does not.
  • They are more common in speech than their formal single-word equivalents.

Formality

Phrasal verbs sound natural and informal; Latin-derived equivalents sound formal. Put off and postpone mean the same and belong in different documents.