I will be needing to get off in four minutes

One of the things students have the most trouble with is the phrasal verb.

A phrasal verb consists of a verb and a preposition, which together have a meaning that is not necessarily related to either the verb or the preposition.

Consider the verb "pick" and object "nose":
When I was young, I used to pick my nose.
When I was young, the other kids used to pick on my nose.
When I turned 18, I picked out a new one.
After the surgery, I couldn't stop picking at it.

Students, understandably, hate phrasal verbs. They point out that a lot of phrasal verbs could be replaced with other, more specific, verbs. For example:
When I was young, the other kids used to mock my nose.
When I turned 18, I selected a new one.

I just tell them that, if they want to sound like Dr. Evil, that's their business, but they still have to understand other people when they speak.


To keep this post reasonably short, I won't even get into the grammar rules* (Does the object go before or after the preposition? Nobody knows!). Just take my word for it that they are ultra difficult.


As if all that weren't bad enough, the same phrasal verb can have a number of different meanings:

Ivan Yakovlevich picked up the nose and went to the bridge to throw it away.
Major Kovalev watched as a government carriage picked up his nose and drove it to the next house.
He was distressed because, without a nose, he was unable to pick up women.
The police picked up the nose on its way to Riga.
Soon the whole city had picked up the story.
I haven't picked up enough Russian to read the original.
The professor berated her students for not picking up on the real meaning of the story.

(And I wonder why nobody picks up when I call).

Even without reading the footnote, you can see why students would find these confusing. But, as the following two conversations, which happened about a week apart, demonstrate, native speakers also have trouble with phrasal verbs:

A: One of my students picked me up today.
B: They know where you live? Or was it from here?
A: No, I mean he literally picked me up.
B: You mean tried to, right? Please tell me that your student just tried to pick you up and failed because you have a boyfriend and--
A: NO! I mean literally picked me up like [picks up book to demonstrate]
B: Ohh! That's weird.
A: I thought so, but it seems a lot less weird now.

A: Yeah, that doctor is creepy.
C: Why creepy?
A: I think he tried to pick me up.
C: Maybe he just needed to see how much you weigh. Was he prescribing anything?
A: That is so not what I meant. I mean pick up like ask out. He tried to pick up [translator], too.
C: Well, if you had just started with that.

And, for the record, I don't know why I thought that pick up even had a literal meaning.


* Oh, who am I kidding?
Most phrasal verbs fall into one of three categories:

1. Phrasal verbs with no direct object. For Example:
George ran away.
The house fell over.

Simple, right?

2. Inseparable phrasal verbs, in which the verb and preposition are always together. For example:
Michael looked for the documents.
Wine turns into alcohol if you let it sit.

Phrasal verbs with two prepositions are almost always in this category.
The family ran out of money.
Michael came up with a plan.

But that's still pretty simple, isn't it?

3. Most phrasal verbs are separable phrasal verbs, which means that the object can be either before or after the preposition with no change in meaning. For example:
Franklin played the recording back.
OR
Franklin played back the recording.

The problem: If your phrasal verb is separable and your object is a pronoun, the object MUST be before the preposition:
The recording surprised everyone when Franklin played it back.
(Native speakers: just try putting the object after the preposition. You can't! You will choke on the words! Your fingers will refuse to type!)

And the separable/inseparable divide has nothing to do with meaning, spelling, or anything, really. You just have to memorize it. If you're a native speaker, you already have. Good job!

If you're not, allow me to apologize on behalf of the English language. Next week: idioms!