English Today

http://journals.cambridge.org/ENG

Additional services for English Today:

Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

Phrasal verbs: ‘a process of the common, relatively

uneducated, mind’?

Kate Wild

English Today / Volume 27 / Issue 04 / December 2011, pp 53 - 57

DOI: 10.1017/S026607841100054X, Published online: 08 November 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S026607841100054X

How to cite this article:

Kate Wild (2011). Phrasal verbs: ‘a process of the common, relatively uneducated, mind’?. English
Today, 27, pp 53-57 doi:10.1017/S026607841100054X

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/ENG, IP address: 200.145.76.103 on 12 Mar 2014

Phrasal verbs: ‘a process of the
common, relatively uneducated,
mind’?
K AT E W I L D
Are phrasal verbs the victims of linguistic discrimination?
Introduction
If you look through a modern guide to English
usage, you will probably find that it has something
to say about phrasal verbs. It might be a warning not
to use certain phrasal verbs in certain contexts. For
example, Allen (2005: 181–90) offers a table of
‘more formal alternatives to those phrasal verbs
that can sometimes be too informal for writing’,
with suggestions for replacing sum up with
conclude and step down with resign, among others.
In many cases, it will be a warning about phrasal
verbs where the adverbial particle adds little seman-
tic content to the verb: The Chicago Manual of Style
advises writers to ‘avoid the phrasal verb if the verb
alone conveys essentially the same meaning –
e.g. rest up is equivalent to rest’ (2003: 174). It
might attribute such usages to American English,
as in Evans’ (2000: 54–5) comment that phrasal
verbs such as win out, stop off and check up on,
which ‘grow like toadstools’, are ‘American
parasites’. It might be a positive comment, such as
Bryson’s note that phrasal verbs are ‘one of the
most versatile features of English’, but if so, it
will probably be qualified: Bryson adds that in
many cases the added particles ‘are merely a sign
of careless writing’ (Bryson, 2002: 156–7). What
is it about phrasal verbs that provokes such com-
ments? By examining grammars, usage books,
dictionaries and other materials since the eighteenth
century, I will discuss changing attitudes towards
phrasal verbs and how they fit into the context of
broader opinions about language.
Common and uneducated?
George Campbell, author of the highly influential
The Philosophy of Rhetoric, compared English
doi:10.1017/S026607841100054X
English Today 108, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 2011). Printed in the United Kingdom
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 12 Mar 2014
(and other modern languages) with Latin and
Greek as follows:
Our modern languages may [. . .] be compared to the
art of carpentry in its rudest state, when the union of
the materials employed by the artisan, could be
effected only by the help of those external and coarse
implements, pins, nails and cramps. The ancient
languages resemble the same art in its most improved
state, after the invention of dovetail joints, grooves,
and mortices, when thus all the principal junctions
are effected by forming properly the extremities or
terminations of the pieces to be joined. (Campbell,
1776: Vol. II, 413)
Campbell was criticizing English as an analytic
language: its grammar is largely based on word
order and separate words such as prepositions
(‘pins, nails and cramps’). Latin and Greek, on
the other hand, are synthetic languages which use
verb and noun endings (‘dovetail joints’) to
KATE WILD completed her
PhD on English phrasal
verbs at the University of
Glasgow in 2010. She also
worked for five years as an
editorial assistant on the
Historical Thesaurus of the
Oxford English Dictionary
and, before that, as an EFL
teacher in Poland and
Vietnam. Her main research interests are dictionary
history and lexical history, and she has published
several articles in these fields. Kate currently works
as a freelance lexicographer and corpus linguist.
Email: katewild2003@gmail.com
© 2011 Cambridge University Press 53
IP address: 200.145.76.103
indicate tense, case and other relationships.
Campbell was voicing the opinion of his time:
Latin in the eighteenth century was the language
of learning and of elevated prose, and was thus
seen as inherently superior.
This elevation of Latin meant that phrasal verbs –
which are usually composed of monosyllabic verbs
and particles of Germanic origins – have often been
seen as the poor relation of their Latinate equiva-
lents, prefixed verbs. One nineteenth-century
grammar complained that ‘there is still a great
deficiency of single words, especially in the verbs,
as appears in the custom of associating prepositions
by annexation rather than incorporating them
by composition: thus we use such forms as “to
think of ”, “to try on”, “to come by”, “to laugh
at”, “to put off ”, “to bring under”, and numerous
others’ (Parminter, 1856: 153). The single-word
alternatives to these phrasal and prepositional
words are Latinate: put off could be replaced by
postpone; laugh at by deride, and so on.
Unfavourable comparisons of phrasal verbs with
their Latinate equivalents continue into the twenti-
eth century. In The Modern English Verb-Adverb
Combination (1920), the first book devoted solely
to phrasal verbs, A. G. Kennedy takes a surprisingly
low view of his subject: ‘[t]he development of
these combinations is essentially a process of the
common, relatively uneducated, mind’ (1920: 40),
and ‘much of the usage [of phrasal verbs] is a result
of linguistic laziness’ (1920: 44). In a later article, he
deplores the ‘growing avoidance of many special
verbs such as recover “to get over,” exhaust “to
use up,” examine “to look over,” [. . .] this disuse
of such verbs threatens to cut down the active voca-
bulary of English very materially during the next
few generations’ (1933: 6). Although Kennedy
does not specify the reasons for his preference, it
is evident that the ‘special’ verbs (recover, exhaust,
examine) are Latinate. (He may also be referring to
the fact that the Latinate verbs have single, special
meanings, while the ‘lazy’ phrasal verbs have
many meanings; I will return to this point below.)
However, the fate of native English words improved
throughout the twentieth century. In part this was
due to campaigns for ‘pure’ or ‘plain’ English,
most famously voiced by George Orwell, who
argued against ‘pretentious, Latinized style’: ‘Bad
writers, and especially scientific, political and
sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by
the notion that Latin and Greek words are grander
than Saxon ones’ (Orwell, 1946). Choosing
‘Saxon’ over Latinate terms often means choosing
a phrasal verb over a Latinate equivalent, in
direct contrast with the alternatives proposed by
54
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 12 Mar 2014
Kennedy, above. For example, according to the
Plain English Campaign’s website, it is better to
avoid calculate, comprise, discharge and exclude,
and to choose work out, make up, carry out and
leave out instead. This is also linked to the
decline in classical learning; Latinate verbs are no
longer transparent, and can seem lifeless. One
early-twentieth-century commentator on American
usage mentioned the American preference for phra-
sal verbs such as turn down rather than Latinate
verbs such as reject, and points out that ‘[t]he
advantage of the American idiom [i.e. phrasal
verbs] is that it preserves the vividness of the meta-
phor, while in the English idiom [i.e. Latinate verbs]
one has almost come to forget that the term
employed uses any metaphor at all’ (Horwill,
1936: 195). That is, for many people the metaphors
in Latinate verbs are dead: reject is no longer ana-
lysed as ‘throw back’, but is simply an opaque term.
Also, in contrast with Kennedy’s ascribing phra-
sal verb usage to a particular set of users (unedu-
cated, lazy ones), usage guides nowadays tend to
compare phrasal verbs and Latinate verbs in
terms of register. Some state baldly that ‘Phrasal
verbs, which are verbs followed by prepositions,
are too informal for academic writing’ (Hong
Kong Polytechnic University). Other guides are
more subtle in their recognition that some phrasal
verbs, such as set out, carry out, and sum up, are
acceptable in more formal registers, while others,
such as put off and bring up, are not. However,
even this indicates a certain negativity which is
still attached to phrasal verbs. After all, the same
could be said of most grammatical classes. Some
adjectives are suitable for formal writing (over-
weight, unusual, wealthy) and others are not
( podgy, wacky, minted), but this is not generally
mentioned in sections on adjectives in usage
guides. Some usage books – especially those writ-
ten for non-native speakers of English – take a
more positive approach. Since learners of English
often find phrasal verbs difficult, and overuse
Latinate equivalents even in informal situations
(especially if their mother tongue is a Romance
language), usage books for English learners often
advise learners to choose phrasal verbs as the
most natural option. For example, at the entry for
apply meaning ‘put something onto a surface’,
Cobuild English Usage writes that ‘In conversation
and in most kinds of writing, you do not say that
you “apply” something. You say that you put it
on, rub it on, rub it in or spread it on’ (Sinclair,
2004). This is a more positive approach to the
register of phrasal verbs: rather than being discour-
aged in formal situations, they are encouraged in
E N G L I S H TO D AY 1 0 8 D ec e mbe r 2 0 11
IP address: 200.145.76.103
informal ones. It is debatable whether usage books
for non-native speakers have an influence on those
written for native speakers – they are quite different
in content and focus – but the increased awareness
of the uses of phrasal verbs in contrast to Latinate
ones in an EFL context may be having a positive
effect on their reception generally.
Allowing anything to mean anything
One of the most striking features of phrasal verbs is
their tendency to have many meanings. Indeed, the
book which introduced the term polysemy to
English used phrasal verbs as an example:
We now see the reason why polysemy is found so
often in small words to an extent which would not be
tolerated in longer words. This is particularly
frequent with short verbs, [. . .which] are frequently
used in connexion with adverbs or prepositions in
such a way that the meaning of the combination can
in no wise be deduced from the meaning of each
word separately, cf. for instance put in, put off, put up
(put up with), make out, make for, make up, set down,
set in, set out, set on, set up (this with some forty
subdivisions), give in, give out, give up, &c.
(Jespersen, 1928: 26)
This feature does not always invite praise.
Polysemy was often criticized in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries: one usage guide asserted
that ‘when we find in a language one word serving
many needs, we may be sure that that language is
the mental furniture of an intellectually rude and
poverty-stricken people’ (White, 1870: 81).
Following this, we find critical comments about
polysemous phrasal verbs. For example, Partridge
(1947: 326) complains about a reference to a bus
taking off, arguing that ‘“take off” has several
meanings already, both active and passive, and,
unless we are to allow anything to mean anything
and everything to mean everything else, some pre-
cision is advisable’.
Furthermore, we find many comments about the
illogical nature of phrasal verbs which run counter
to the ‘true’ meaning of either the verb or the
particle. For example, one nineteenth-century
usage guide goes into great detail about the
illogicality of up in ‘taken up for a crime’ and
lock up:
It is only a chance that his prison chamber may be up,
instead of down; that is, elevated above the street, on
which he was taken, instead of being sunk below it. If
his crime be murder, or any other of a heinous stamp,
he must be content with the lowest dungeon the jail
PHRASAL VERBS: ‘A PROCESS OF TH E COMMO N, RELATIVELY UNEDU CATED, MI ND ’?
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 12 Mar 2014
can afford; and when settled in it, he must certainly
be taken down, and not up. Fancy him brought to a
lock-up house, and secured in the strong barred room
on the first floor, while his guard sits over his head,
on the second floor. One of them would easily say,
‘he is locked up at last.’ ‘Where is he locked up?’ -
‘Downstairs.’ (Anon, 1826: 90–1)
Such comments relate to the etymological fallacy:
the belief that every word has only one true mean-
ing. That is, it is assumed that up must mean ‘to a
higher level’, whereas it has many other meanings:
included in the 33 numbered senses in the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) (with many further sub-
divisions) are ‘To the notice or consideration of a
person or body of persons (spec. of one in auth-
ority)’ (as in taken up for a crime) and ‘Into a
close or enclosed state’ (as in lock up).
This fallacy was at its height in the nineteenth
century, when writers like John Horne Tooke and
Charles Richardson attempted to determine one
single meaning for every word in English.
Nowadays few people claim that there is anything
inherently wrong with a word that has more than
one meaning, although it is still common to find
despairing remarks about the polysemy of such
phrasal verbs as run down, or the apparent lack
of logic in the fact that you can either fill out or
fill in a form, with no difference in meaning.
Obesity in the language
It is often stated that Samuel Johnson was very
critical of phrasal verbs: this myth seems to have
originated with Logan Pearsall Smith who, in the
tract in which he coined the term phrasal verb,
claimed that because Johnson wanted ‘to do away
with “grammatical irregularities”’, he ‘naturally
disapproved of these idiomatic combinations’
(Smith, 1923: 58). In fact, in the whole of
Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755), there are only sixteen phrasal verbs to
which Johnson attaches a negative label – not
many in a dictionary which includes hundreds of
phrasal verb senses. However, the one type of phra-
sal verb which Johnson does criticize is the redun-
dant phrasal verb. At fill up he notes that ‘Up is
often used without much addition to the force of
the verb’; at fall down he remarks that ‘down is
sometimes added to fall, though it adds little to
the signification’; he also comments on the redun-
dancy of beat up, copy out, fell down and sue out.
Other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts
make similar comments about particular phrasal
verbs: Campbell (1776: Vol II, 278) comments of
55
IP address: 200.145.76.103
return back and come forth that back and forth
‘serve neither for ornament, nor for use, and are
therefore to be regarded as encumbrances’; Noah
Webster (1828) criticizes the redundancy of phrasal
verbs such as fill up, breed up, bloat up, pen up and
pucker up; and even the first edition of the OED,
intended as a beacon of objectivity, remarks that
ascend is ‘occas. emphasized by a redundant up’
and enter is found ‘with pleonastic in’.
In the nineteenth century there is an awareness of
particular particles – especially up – being used
redundantly. Of open up, one usage book asks:
Can any English scholar inform anybody else what is
the propriety of ‘up’ in those and in a thousand
similar instances? No doubt, ‘up’ is a little word, and
it may often be overlooked in a crowd; but it has a
very ambitious strut, when thus paraded on stilts.
(Gould, 1880: 108–9)
By the mid-twentieth century the discussion of
redundant phrasal verbs was a staple of usage man-
uals, and we find such comments as the following.
The trouble is that the baser sort of English-speaker
[. . .] thinks that it is right and clever to add ‘up’ or
‘out’ to any short verb, though the sense is neither
enriched nor altered. (Herbert, 1935: 153)
Such comments are based on the assumption that
words must have identifiable separate meanings,
whereas it is possible that they have different func-
tions. Up, in particular, often has an aspectual (or,
more accurately, an Aktionsart or ‘lexical aspect’)
function: it shows that the writer or speaker sees
the action as complete. For example, if you face
a dilemma, you have a dilemma that needs to be
dealt with (but you may avoid dealing with it); if
you face up to a dilemma, you actually deal with
it. If you eat a banana, you consume at least part
of it (but you may leave it if you decide half-way
through that you are not hungry); if you eat up a
banana, you finish it (it would be odd to say
‘I started eating up my banana and then left it’).
The same applies to other adverbial particles.
You can start to return to something (for example,
‘The refugees started to return to their homes’), but
you are unlikely to start to return back, because
returning back is a completed act.
American parasites
Before the twentieth century, there were plenty of
negative comments about redundant phrasal
verbs, but no blame was apportioned to any par-
ticular set of users (except perhaps the
56
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 12 Mar 2014
‘uneducated’ ones, and the occasional comment
that certain combinations were Scotticisms). In
the early twentieth century, though, these phrasal
verbs began to be associated with American
English. A series of letters in The Times (8–16
February, 1933) begins with one reader criticizing
the Chancellor’s use of the phrase try out in ‘try out
the possibilities of these new methods’: the reader
‘cannot believe that [the editor] would put an
Americanism into his mouth’ (8 February, 1933,
13). Other readers agree, criticizing the allegedly
American cancel out, speed up, slow up, sign up,
stand up for and check up, described as
‘American gate-crashings’. Later letters and
articles in The Times display a similarly negative
attitude: one reader asks: ‘Why does Sir John
R. Marriott inflict on us the horrid Americanism
of “face up to”? Why can he not simply and tersely
“face the facts”?’ (17 August, 1934, 8); another
asks, of man up, meet up with and study up on,
‘Must the strong, simple transitive verb, which is
one of the main glories of our tongue, become as
obsolete in England as it appears to be in
America?’ (6 February, 1947, 5). An editorial
piece (17 June, 1964, 13) complains about win
out, help out and fire out, where
a nasty verbal convention takes the place of a plain
word. . .“Out”, of course, used as an unnecessary
auxiliary [sic] comes into this country from the
United States, and, while we have been benefited
much linguistically and otherwise from the flow of
imports from that country, this is one immigrant we
can dispense with.
Usage books follow suit: Gowers (1948: 41–2)
writes that redundant phrasal verbs are an ‘infec-
tion which [. . .] is spreading across the Atlantic
[and] calls for watchfulness’. This belief that
redundant phrasal verbs are a particular feature of
American English (but are ‘invading’, ‘infecting’
or ‘gate-crashing’ British English) prevails today:
as noted in the introduction, Evans (2000: 54–5)
uses a similar metaphor when he describes phrasal
verbs such as win out, stop off and check up on as
‘American parasites’.
How accurate are these comments? We can look
at evidence about particular phrasal verbs in the
OED, and find that some of these were indeed
first recorded in American English, including
check up (on), meet up (with) and win out. Others
were in the language long before Americans
could be blamed for them: stand up for is first
recorded in 1608, in King Lear; help out in 1600.
Others are relatively new, but with no evidence
E N G L I S H TO D AY 1 0 8 D ec e mbe r 2 0 11
IP address: 200.145.76.103
of being particularly American in origin or use: all
the quotations for man up in the OED are from
twentieth-century British texts, while speed up is
first recorded in 1894 in the Westminster Gazette,
with later quotations from a mixture of British
and American texts.
There are plenty of other phrasal verbs which are
at least as ‘redundant’, and which are firmly British
in origin. Eat up is first recorded in 1535 in a
translation of the Bible; gobble up in 1601. The
first quotation for cool down in the OED is from
a nineteenth-century British book; warm up in the
literal sense (warm up food) is first recorded in
1848 in Dickens’ Dombey and Son; in the figurative
sense (warm up to a subject), the first quotation
is from the nineteenth-century British Prime
Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. As I have argued
above, though, these are not really redundant, and
neither are the phrasal verbs that are disparaged as
Americanisms. The point of interest is that because
people object to ‘redundant’ phrasal verbs, they
associate them with American English, and neglect
to mention the many British equivalents. It is
notable that these objections first arose in the
1930s, around the time that American influence on
British culture (especially through music and film)
was beginning to be felt and sometimes resented.
Conclusion
Perhaps because they are so flexible – they often
have many meanings and can be used in a variety
of grammatical patterns, contexts and registers –
over the centuries, phrasal verbs have elicited strong
opinions in writers of grammars and usage guides.
These opinions can be understood by examining
the history of ideas about English, including the
relationship between English and Latin, attitudes
towards meanings, and attitudes towards varieties
of English. By reflecting on the history of such lin-
guistic debates, perhaps we can move towards a
more balanced view of the much-maligned phrasal
verb, through understanding of the history of the
▪
varied sources of such debates, and the evaluation
of their influence on prescriptivist attitudes.
References
Allen, R. 2005. Penguin Writers’ Guides: How to Write
Better English. London: Penguin.
Anon. 1826. The Vulgarities of Speech Corrected. London:
Printed for James Bulcock.
PHRASAL VERBS: ‘A PROCESS OF TH E COMMO N, RELATIVELY UNEDU CATED, MI ND ’?
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 12 Mar 2014
Bryson, B. 2002. Troublesome Words. 3rd ed. London:
Penguin.
Campbell, G. 1776. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. London:
Printed for W. Strahan.
Evans, H. 2000. Essential English for Journalists, Editors
and Writers. 2nd revised ed. London: Pimlico.
Gould, E. S. 1880. Good English, or, Popular Errors in
Language. Revised ed. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son.
Gowers, E. 1948. Plain Words: A Guide to the Use of
English. London: HMSO.
Herbert, A. P. 1935. What a Word! London: Methuen & Co.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 2002. ‘English for
Academic Purposes.’ October 3. Online at <http://www2.
elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/eap/book/default.htm> (Accessed
May 1, 2011).
Horwill, H. W. 1936. ‘American variations.’ Society for Pure
English Tract XLV. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Humphrys, J. 2004. Lost for Words: The Mangling and
Manipulating of the English Language. London: Hodder
and Stoughton.
Jespersen, O. 1928. Monosyllabism in English. London:
Humphrey Milford.
Kennedy, A. G. 1920. The Modern English Verb-Adverb
Combination. Stanford: Stanford University.
—. 1933. ‘The future of the English language.’ American
Speech, 8(4), 3–12.
McDermott, A. (ed.) 1996. A Dictionary of the English
Language on CD-ROM. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Orwell, G. 1946. ‘Politics and the English language.’
Online at <http://www.george-orwell.org/
Politics_and_the_English_Language/0.html> (Accessed
May 1, 2011).
Parminter, G. H. 1856. Materials for a Grammar of the
Modern English Language. Cambridge: Macmillan and
Co.
Partridge, E. 1947. Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good
English. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Plain English Campaign. 2001. ‘The A-Z of alternative
words.’ Online at <http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/files/
alternative.pdf> (Accessed May 1, 2011).
Simpson, J. A. (ed.) 2000. The Oxford English Dictionary.
Online edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Online at <http://
www.oed.com> (Accessed May 1, 2011).
Sinclair, J. 2004. Collins Cobuild English Usage. 2nd ed.
Glasgow: Collins.
Smith, L. P. 1923. ‘English idioms.’ Society for Pure English
Tract XII. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
The Times Digital Archive. 1785–1985. Gale Group. Online
at <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark>
(Accessed May 1, 2011).
University of Chicago Press Staff. 2003. The Chicago Manual
of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Webster, N. 1828. An American Dictionary of the English
Language. Online at <http://1828.mshaffer.com/>
(Accessed May 1, 2011).
White, R. G. 1870. Words and their Uses, Past and Present:
A Study of the English Language. New York: Sheldon and
Company.
57
IP address: 200.145.76.103