B2 Compiling Phrasal Verbs

If you want to participate in this interactive compilation, send in a post (click on comments below) adding a few new phrasal verbs to the ongoing list as they come up in your Student's book. Follow the pattern of the first five verbs which I am posting for you: VERB IN CAPITALS, page number in Straightforward Upper Intermediate (in parenthesis), transitive/intransitive, separable/inseparable, = the meaning of the verb, plus one or two examples. I will then supervise the entries and add them to this list.
A good reference work is Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Plus (Macmillan, ISBN: 978-1-40-506390-6). To revise the three types of phrasal verbs click here.

• TURN INTO (p. 6) transitive, separable= change or develop into something different. What started out as an enjoyable holiday turned into a nightmare.

• SET UP (p. 6) transitive, separable= do all the organizarion necessary to start a business, company, system, etc. This may involve arranging things, paying money, signing legal documents, etc. He asked his secretary to set up a meeting for the following Friday.

• TAKE SOMETHING UP (p. 6) transitive, separable= start to do an activity, especially for pleasure. My 70-year-old grandmother has just taken up sailing and my grandfather is thinking of taking up Japanese.

• BE INTO SOMETHING (p. 6) transitive, inseparable= be interested in something. My brother is really into classical music. I'm not into cricket at all. I've always thought it's a very slow and boring game.

• STAND OUT (p. 6) intransitive, inseparable= be much more impressive or important than other people or things. All the candidates were good, but one in particular stands out.

• MAKE SOMETHING UP (p.7) [transitive, separable]= invent something such as a story or excuse, sometimes in order to deceive people. I think it´s very unkind of you to make up stories about him. You shouldn´t make it all up on your CV, because you can find yourself in deep water.

• CHECK OUT (p. 9) [intransitive]= pay the bill when leaving a hotel. After she checked out, she took a cab to the airport. Also, CHECK OUT OF [inseparable]: After she checked out of the hotel, she took a cab to the airport.

• STAY UP (p.9) [intransitive]= not going to bed at your usual time. Dad, can we satay up tonight and watch a film with you?
  

• FIND OUT (p.10) [transitive, separable]= discover information by chance or deliberately. To find out something/if.../when.../who.../what.../why.../that…/about…, etc. I found out that it was worth five times what he’d paid for it. I tried to keep him from learning its value, but he found it out. Also, FIND OUT [intransitive]= ascertain (something) through examination or inquiry. I don't know what he's up to, but I'm going to find out. **note that this verb is often intransitive even when an object seems implied or apparent, e.g. I tried to keep him from learning its value, but he found out.

• TRACK DOWN (p.10) [transitive, separable]= follow the course or movements of something or someone until it is located. To find someone or something after a lengthy search. If someone asks me to track down a copy of some rare, Spain-only pressing of an Elvis single, I’m quite happy to do it. It took us all summer to track him down.

• START OUT (Straightforward Workbook p. 5) [inseparable]= take the first steps or actions in an activity (life, career, etc.) or to be in a particular way originally. Paintballing didn't start out as a game. He started out in the mailroom but ended up a mid-level executive. START OUT AS (p. 6) transitive, inseparable= begin a new experience, action, activity, etc. Example: What started out as an enjoyable holiday turned into a nightmare.

• GET BACK (Straightforward workbook p. 5) [intransitive]= return; answer. We got back from our vacation last week. I´ll get back to you. Also, GET BACK [separable]: to recover, to regain possession of. I loaned him my iPod and never got it back.

• PUT ACROSS (p. 18) [transitive, separable]= transmit an idea or a message. John is a very good politician because he is the best at putting his ideas across.

• ADD UP (p. 19) [intransitive, inseparable]= be reasonable, plausible, or consistent; make sense. The witness's testimony simply did not add up

• BUTT IN (p. 19) [intransitive, inseparable]= It is when someone interrupts a conversation or an activity without permission. Please stop butting in. You will have a turn to speak.

• CLEAR UP (p. 19) [transitive, separable]= 1. Tidy. We always clear up the kitchen after breakfast = After breakfast we clear it up. 2. Clarify the troubles or mysteries. They should clear things up among themselves. The police managed to clear up the case of the missing diamond.

• HOLD OUT (p. 50) [transitive, separable]= offer something to someone. He got on his knees, showed her a beautiful ring and held it out to his girlfriend.

• SORT OUT (p.83) Transitive, separable= find a solution for a problem. It´ll sort itself out. It always does.

• GET BACK TO (p.83) Transitive, inseparable= contact someone at a later time.
  I need to call him. I´d promised I´d get back to him today.

• PUT UP WITH (p. 83) Transitive, inseparable= accept an annoying situation without complaining. I don´t know how Linda puts up with you!

• PUT SOMEONE UP TO SOMETHING (p. 83) Transitive, Two Objects= encourage someone to do something. So it was your idea, was it? You put him up to it.

• TELL SOMEONE OFF (p. 83) Transitive, separable= criticize someone for doing something wrong. Billy's mother told him off for ruining the party.

• PUT SOMETHING OFF (p.83) Transitive, separable= avoid doing something you don't want to do. How long are you going to keep putting it off?

Embarrassing Moments

I was staying recently in a rather smart hotel in Melbourne. As I went to bed I was aware of music coming from the room next door. I knocked quite gently on the wall to indicate that it was unacceptably loud.

I must nonetheless have dropped off to sleep. At 2 am I was wide awake and the music from the next door seemed even louder. I walked out into the corridor to get the room number. I then telephoned the next-door room. A sleepy Australian voice replied and I told him in no uncertain terms that his music was disgracefully loud. Another ten minutes and the noise was no better. I rang again, even more angry this time. Still no improvement.

I telephoned the hotel security. The noise seemed to get even worse. I banged more angrily upon the wall.

Eventually the hotel security men arrived. “Come in,” I said. “Just listen to the level of this music. It really is impossible to sleep.” The two extremely polite hotel officials entered my room, walked to the side of the bed and turned a knob. There was silence. All the time it had been my own radio with its loudspeaker by the wall which had been the cause of the trouble.

In the morning I slunk quietly out of the hotel, hoping not to meet a bleary-eyed Australian complaining of a night’s sleep ruined by calls of some demented Englishman.

Christopher Chataway

  One of the first dinner parties I went to when I left school was given at Arlington House by the fabulously rich Lady Michelham.

About thirty people sat down at a huge table covered in orchids and set with gold plates. I had never even seen gold plates before, let alone eaten off them!

The first course was a slice of cantaloup melon and I picked up a gold spoon, but at the first touch the melon leapt off the plate and disappeared under the table.

I sat crimson with embarrassment while it was retrieved by a disdainful footman with powdered hair, and another piece placed in front of me!

Barbara Cartland

  I was shopping in Walton Street. I went into a very glamorous shop and started looking through the clothes. The assistant called, “Can I help you?” I replied, “May I please look?” to which she shouted, “Madam, we are a dry cleaners, you know!”

Una Stubbs

  My next-door neighbour’s cat was held firmly in the jaws of my bulldog. I couldn’t open his jaws and rang the vet. He couldn’t come, so I drove like mad to his surgery, and got a speeding ticket that earned me an endorsement  plus a fine of £80.

The vet gave the dog an injection and he went to sleep, his jaws relaxed and we freed the cat who was dead. I then went back to my next door neighbour and apologized for the bulldog’s behaviour. My neighbour laughed and said the cat had died of a heart attack and he had buried it in his back garden. The bulldog had dug it up.

Frank Carson

  On one occasion, when preaching at a service for several hundred young people and their parents, I felt it was a good opportunity to draw their attention to a new window which had been placed in the church the previous week.   My great mistake was to try and involve the children in the sermon! I asked the question: “What is different about church today compared with last Sunday?”

Complete silence.

I tried again.

“Now children, stand up on mummy’s knees and take a good look round church, and when you see what is different compared to last Sunday please put up your hands.”

Suddenly a little hand in the back row shot into the air and a voice called out for all to hear.

“Please sir, there aren’t as many out as there were last Sunday!”

The Archbishop of Armagh

 Just after Eurovision I did my first European tour (each night a different city and country). We arrived in Venice (I thought) and I decided to kill time before the show by going to see the gondolas. I went to the hotel receptionist and asked him to direct me to them. He looked very puzzled and asked me to repeat the question.  When I did repeat it he looked even more puzzled. I was extremely tired and felt it was rather silly to hire a receptionist who couldn’t speak English.

In desperation I said, “Just direct me to the nearest canal.” After thinking for a moment he said he thought there was one canal up in the mountains.

It dawned on me that something was very wrong. “Where am I?” I asked.

Well, I was in Vienna!

Dana

  I was signing books in London once, and after a two-hour session I went upstairs for a drink with the manager. There was a huge bunch of flowers in cellophane on the table.

“Oh, how lovely,” I screamed. “Thank you very much.”

“They’re for my wife,” said the manager hastily, and snatched them away.

Jilly Cooper

  Once  when reading the news on ITN in around 1956-57, I had to refer to the Liverpool Chamber of Shipping. Unfortunately I put two “t”s where the two “p”s should have been. Luckily, hardly anyone noticed.

Ludovic Kennedy

  Several years ago I was waiting in the queue to be checked by Customs at Calais. Standing behind me was a small group –of four or five- of nuns. I took a small step forward and down fell my knickers with a swoosh. In a split second those nuns had formed an encircling screen around me and, protected by their long black skirts, I was able to step out of my knickers and shove them in my handbag. Because of those nuns it was not nearly so embarrassing a moment as it might have been.

Marjorie Proops

From The NSPCC Book of Famous Faux Pas, edited by Fiona Snelso

B2 Advice for a job interview

1. Dress up for the interview to get across a responsible attitude.
2. Calm down before the interview by going for a walk.
3. Think about the job and write down your strengths and weaknesses.
4. Look things up about the company on the internet.
5. Turn up at the interview with enough margin of time.
6. Take down notes during the interview.
7. Be honest and do not make up information about yourself.
8. Do not make out you understand something when you don't.
9. Do not go on about your personal life.
10. Speak up and express yourself clearly.
11. Come up with a couple of questions about the job.
12. ...

If you can come up with another piece of advice, post it here.

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