An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'put through', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. In this post, I am focussing on the phrasal verb 'put through' and explaining its different meanings and uses. How many of them do you know already? Maybe you know all of them or maybe just one or two, or perhaps this is a completely new phrasal verb to you. Read on to find out more. Let's make start and don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own sentence featuring 'put through' 😊 PUT THROUGH: KEY INFORMATION Usage Common Number of meanings 6 Past tense forms Put through / put through Separable? Yes MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To transfer a call to someone To cause someone to have a bad experience To pay for someone's education To action something and continue with it until the end To allow someone to the next stage of a competition Extra meanings and bonuses Photo: Pexels THE BASICS As always, let's start the post by considering the individual words that make up our phrasal verb of choice and in this case this is the verb 'to put' and the particle 'through'. We use the irregular verb 'to put' a lot in English and it has various different applications and meanings. Perhaps the most commonly used of these is 'to place or move something into a specified position', however it can also be used to mean 'to cause someone or something to be in a particular condition', 'to express something with words' and 'to estimate something'. I put my hands on my hips. Sarah put the shopping in her kitchen cupboards. It's 8pm, so it's time to put the children to bed. This has put me in a difficult position at work. She has put my worries to rest! What did you put in your email? The prepositional particle 'through' is one that you will certainly already be aware of and is primarily used to talk about movement from one side of something to the other via the centre of it and not around the outside of it. It is of course used with physical movement, but we can also use it in relation to time and emotional states, especially when they are negative. In phrasal verbs, the word 'through' is typically used to convey the ideas of completion ( go through ), endurance (push through) and exhaustion of resources ( get through ). So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'put through'.... MEANING 1: To transfer a telephone call to someone Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere, business English Potential synonyms To transfer, to connect Separable? Yes If any of you have ever had to make a business call to a company in an English speaking country, then you are likely to have heard this first usage of 'put through' before as it means to transfer a telephone call to someone. This application is normally only used when making a phone call to a business, typically one with a receptionist or with a lot of different departments and people working within it, where it is possible to transfer a call to another person on the same internal network. As such, you are unlikely to ever hear or use this in reference to a personal phone call to friends or family members. Typically, when someone from outside of an organisation telephones the company to speak to a specific person, they will often first speak to the receptionist or to another employee in the business or department. Once it has been established who the caller wishes to speak to, the receptionist will then "put them through" and connect them to the desired individual. Moreover, it is quite normal for the person transferring the call to advise the caller what they are doing. This is often expressed in several different ways, here are some typical examples.... I'm just putting you through I'll put you through now Grammatically, as you can see from the examples above, we tend to either use either the present continuous or 'will' future when doing this. This application is separable and I would say that we almost always use it in the separable way with the caller or the word 'call' being placed between 'put' and 'through'. John, I've got your solicitor on the line. Am I ok to put him through? Don't put any calls through to me this afternoon as I need to catch up on my work. I've just tried to put you through to Alison but her line is busy. Can I take a message? MEANING 2: To cause someone to have a bad experience Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To subject Separable? Yes As many of you may have noticed, many English phrasal verbs typically have at least one negative or unpleasant meaning, and this second meaning is "the negative one." If you have read my blog post about the phrasal verb 'go through', you may remember that one its meanings is 'to suffer a negative experience' and this second application of 'put through' is linked to this as it means 'to cause someone to have a bad experience'. With this, we are simply changing the focus from solely a person's negative experience to the person or thing that is responsible for it. In other words, when we use 'put through', we are placing the blame for something unpleasant or traumatic on someone else. It can also be used when a situation or thing is the cause of the negativity. This can be used on it's own or with a quantifier such as 'a lot' when the person does not wish to specify the nature of their trauma.... My ex-husband has no idea what he put me through. Do you realise how much you have put the children through recently? My boss has put me through a lot in the last year but I am grateful to him as it has made me work much harder. It can also be used with nouns or a noun and a quantifier to describe the nature of the experience.... This situation has put us through so much stress in this past year. Colin's parents put him through abuse when he was a child. You've put me through a lot of pain and I don't think we should stay together. Susan felt terrible for putting her family through so much stress during her illness. The intense court battle put them through years of emotional and financial strain. One other noun that is perhaps used more commonly than any other with this application of 'put through' is 'hell'. Again, this does not necessarily reveal the nature of the bad experience, it just stresses that it was very bad. Our neighbour put us through years of hell. Being bullied at school every day put David through hell, leaving lasting emotional scars. The prisoners were put through hell during their years of unjust imprisonment. MEANING 3: To pay for someone's education Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To finance, to pay for Separable? Yes Let's switch things up to something more positive for our third meaning of 'put through', which is to pay for someone's education. In a nutshell, if someone puts you through school, college or university, then they pay for you to attend the institution until you graduate or get your qualifications. It is worth pointing out here the difference between American and British English when referring to educational establishments. In the USA, a university is typically referred to as 'college', whilst in the UK, a college is normally an educational institution for school leavers and adults, offering both academic and vocational courses. A couple of prestigious universities (Oxford and Cambridge) are made up of different colleges but in general in the UK, the word 'college' does not mean the same as in America. As you might expect, this application is normally heard in reference to wealthy people who can afford to pay for someone's education, however it can also be used to describe when a company pays for a trainee or an apprentice to undertake a course of education that prepares them to work in a specific role in their company. Alex's parents worked multiple jobs to put him through college. Katherine's grandparents put her through law school, insisting on supporting her pursuit of a better future. The scholarship that Debbie received helped her family put her through university without getting into debt. The government program aims to put underprivileged students through higher education by offering full financial aid. One other time that you might hear this is when a person is able to pay for themselves to go to college or university, typically to stress that they have earned the money to pay for the education themselves. In this case, we use the reflexive (-self) pronoun. Emily put herself through college by working nights as a waitress in a restaurant. Steve managed to put himself through medical school by taking out loans and working on weekends. Sam was proud of having put himself through an MBA program despite the financial challenges. Of course, unless you are a very rich or lucky person with good personal connections, this application is probably not going to be one that many of you (or me) will ever experience on a first-hand basis. However, it is still one that I hear in use from time to time so it is definitely worth knowing it. MEANING 4: To action something and continue with it until the end Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To implement, to enact, to see through Separable? Yes Our fourth meaning of 'put through' is 'to action something and continue with it until to the end'. This application is one that you are likely to come across in both the worlds of business and politics as it is typically used with things like plans, processes, policies and laws. We use 'put through' here to describe the entire process of initiating the required work and seeing it through to a successful conclusion, normally in order to ensure that an official change has been implemented. Jonah worked tirelessly to put the new policy through, ensuring it received approval from the board. The finance minister vowed to put the legislation through, no matter how many obstacles arose. They had to negotiate with multiple stakeholders to put through the merger agreement. MEANING 5: To allow someone to the next stage of a competition Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Rare Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To advance someone, to go through Separable? Yes I'm not sure if it is the same in your country, but on the television in the UK, there seem to be more and more talent competitions in which people compete to become the best singer, dancer or entertainer etc. It's absolutely not my cup of tea, however if it is something that you enjoy, then this fifth and final meaning of 'put through' may be of interest to you as it means 'to allow someone to move to the next stage of a competition'. Again, this is similar to the phrasal verb 'go through', however with 'put through' there is an element of a judge or vote deciding that a competitor can move to the next round, rather than going through to the next round based on point or a score as is often the case with 'go through'. I'm sorry, but I don't think you have what it takes to win this competition and I am therefore not putting you through to the semi-finals. The judges have put me through to the final! EXTRA MEANINGS AND IDIOMS Before I end this post, I just want to make you aware of a couple of other times that you may hear 'put through' being used by an English speaker, as well as a couple of nice and useful idioms to help you sound more like a native speaker... To put something through a business - If you know anyone who is an entrepreneur or who runs their own business, you may hear them talking about recording personal expenses and costs on their business account, rather than their personal account. This practice is known as 'putting something through a business' and is done as a way of claiming something as a tax relief and therefore not having to pay for it. Put your credit card away, I'll pay for the meal and put it through the business. To put someone through a wall / window - If an English speaker ever tells you that they will put you through a wall or a window, then you should perhaps apologise or move away quickly as it is in fact a threat to hit or punch you very hard. The idea is that they will punch with so much force that you will go through the wall, which is nonsense of course but nevertheless, they are probably very angry with you. If you ever do that again, I will put you through the wall. Do you understand?! To put someone through their paces - This is a lovely idiomatic expression that means to test what someone or something can do by making them do it. It can be used with both people and objects eg. machines and devices alike. I'm going to take the new Mercedes car out this morning and put it through its paces. To put someone through the wringer - This final idiom is an informal expression that is used to mean 'to cause someone to experience a very stressful experience, or a series of unpleasant or horrible experiences'. It can also be used to mean to ask someone a lot of questions, like an interrogation, which can itself also be a stressful thing to go through. Poor Jean, she's really been put through the wringer this year with one problem after another. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'put through'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

A detailed explanation of how to use the phrasal verb 'run out' correctly like a native speaker. Hello and welcome everyone to this instalment of Phrasal Verbs Explained; a blog which aims to help you understand English phrasal verbs in a clear and coherent way, so that you can use them to improve your language level and sound more like a native speaker. In this post, we are looking at the phrasal verb 'to run out' , which can be used to talk about many things including shops, words and steam. Read on to learn more.... KEY INFORMATION: Number of Meanings 3 Literal Meaning Yes Idiomatic Meaning Yes Separable No Past Forms Ran out / run out British or American Both For more explanation of the terms in the table above, click here MEANING 1: Literal CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate Usage Medium Transitive or Intransitive? Intransitive (no direct object) Separable ​No Potential synonyms ​To escape, to flee, to pop to (Brit.), to nip to (Brit.) As a starting point, let's look at the individual components of the phrasal verb 'to run out' in order to understand how it is used literally. Firstly, we have the verb ' to run' , meaning to move faster than walking (like Usain Bolt) and secondly, we have the particle ' out' , meaning to move from an interior or enclosed place to an exterior place. So, logically if we combine these two words together, it gives us the literal sense of an action of running from and leaving an interior space, either to enter another interior space or to an exterior space (outside). Native speakers only really use this literal form to describe something sudden, dramatic or exciting, such as en escape from somewhere (because otherwise people simply walk out of buildings 😜).... Every day when I get home from work, my dog runs out of the house to greet me. The schoolchildren ran out of the classroom as soon as the lesson finished. People started running out of the sea when someone shouted "Shark!". IDIOM ALERT! Ok so now we have looked at the literal meaning, let's consider the next expression where we have a direct object between run and out .... John ran Roger out of the city. What do you think the meaning of the above could be? In American English (and less so in British English), if we run someone out of a town or city, it means that we chase or force a person to leave a place, normally by threatening them. I guess in the past it was normal for people to chase after someone in order to make them leave their town or city, but nowadays (thankfully) it is not so common and therefore the usage of this is also much rarer. You may still hear this in American television shows and movies however, so it is always useful to know. EXTRA INFORMATION TO SOUND LIKE A NATIVE #1 It is possible to use ' run out to somewhere ' to express when we need to go somewhere and back quickly. For example, imagine that you are preparing a dinner party for 5 guests and you realise that you have forgotten to buy dessert. You may then need to run out to the shop to buy a dessert. This does not mean that you are physically running to the shop, but rather that you are going there and back quickly (normally in a car). It is also common for people to drop the "out" so that they simply ' run to somewhere', however the meaning is the same with or without ' out' . This usage is perhaps more common in American English, with ' to pop to' or ' to nip to' being more common alternatives in British English. He has just run out to the post office to post a letter, he will be back shortly. I've forgotten to buy potatoes. I'm going to quickly run to the store to get some. MEANING 2: To have no more left of something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate ​Usage Common Transitive or Intransitive? Intransitive (no direct object) Separable No ​Potential Synonyms ​To sell out, to have no more left, to use up, to exhaust, to expire ​Commonly used with Money, energy, steam, ideas, time If you have heard 'to run out' in an English conversation, it is probable that you heard this idiomatic version as it is commonly used by native speakers. Used idiomatically, 'to run out' means to have nothing left or remaining of something, usually because it has been used or sold. In order to specify the thing that we do not have anymore or that has run out , we add the additional preposition ' of' , followed by a noun e.g to run out of something. We have run out of bread and milk. Many supermarkets ran out of toilet paper at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since we use many different things in our lives, the list of possible nouns that can be used with this phrasal verb is very long, but common examples are money, food, energy, space, ideas, stock and options. Photo: Pexels Another very common noun that we use with this phrasal verb is ' time' , normally when we have a deadline or future point in time before which something must be completed. Based on this idea of time and deadlines, we can also use ' run out ' as a synonym for the verb "to expire", i.e. to express when the validity of something ends. Typical situations for this would be with a passport or a drivers license, which expire or run out on set dates. This phrasal verb can certainly be used in formal situations, however in very formal situations a different verb such as 'to exhaust' is definitely more suitable. I need to find a petrol station before I run out of petrol*! There are only 5 minutes left in the match; the England football team is running out of time to score another goal and win. Roger is running out of money fast, so he needs to find a job quickly! I've booked a holiday to Spain in April and I've just realised that my passport runs out in March! I hope I can renew it in time. * Petrol in British English is Gas in American English EXTRA INFORMATION TO SOUND LIKE A NATIVE #2 When the item or thing is no longer available, it is normal to use the present perfect tense to express this.... We need to stop, we have run out of time! In informal conversations, it is also extremely common to simply drop the word ' run' and use the informal construction ' to be out of something' as a synonym. We need to stop, we are out of time. SHOP CUSTOMER: Excuse me, I can't find any bread anywhere. Whereabouts is it? SHOP ASSISTANT: I'm afraid we are out of bread. The next delivery will be tomorrow. INTENDED MEANING: There is no more bread in the shop for the customer to buy until tomorrow. A variation of this informal usage is ' to be all out of something' . Again, this is something that should only be used in informal conversations and situations: Oh no, we are all out of coffee! I will run out to shop to get some. MEANING 3: To abandon someone Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium ​Transitive or Intransitive? Intransitive (no direct object) Separable No Potential synonyms To abandon, to quit, to leave Commonly used with ​Family, partner, job In this second idiomatic meaning we are replacing the extra preposition OF with ON , to give a new and completely different meaning. To run out on someone or something means to abandon a person, a family or a responsibility and leave, normally suddenly. This is definitely more of an informal usage and I would say that it is mainly used to talk about someone suddenly leaving a relationship or a family. My ex-husband ran out on me and our 6-month old baby. Helen was so stressed that she ran out on her job and never went back. SPEAK LIKE A NATIVE: TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF HOW “TO COME ACROSS" IS USED BY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS If you can memorise the sentences below and use them in your conversations, it will help you to come across like a native speaker..... We have run out of [noun] but apart from that we have everything else on the menu. [Person] is running out of options. We are running out of time to [verb] I've run out of ideas for what to make for dinner. Unfortunately we have run out of time today, so we will continue with this next time. I'm afraid we have run out of that. Would you like something else? Go and get some more before you run out ! I am running out of patience! [Pronoun] ran out on [possessive pronoun] family. IDIOM ALERT! The idiom ' to run out of steam' is a common expression that we use to express when the progress of something slows down or stops because we lose energy or interest in something. The Scotland football team played brilliantly in the first half of the game but they ran out of steam in the second half. Photo: Pexels QUESTIONS FOR WRITING & SPEAKING PRACTICE Have you ever run out of things to say when answering a job interview question? Did you get the job? Would you rather run out of gas for your heating on a cold day or electricity for your air conditioning on a hot day? Why? When was the last time that you ran out of patience (became angry) with someone? What happened? Do you think that we are running out of time to save the planet from climate change? How can we change the situation? Photo: Pexels Photo: Pexels That is the end of today's post. Thank you so much for taking the time to read it and I sincerely hope that it has helped you a little bit further on your English learning journey. If you found the post useful, please go ahead and share it, so together we can help as many English learners as possible to understand and master these tricky phrasal verbs. Also, please leave any comments, questions, suggestions or examples of ' run out ' below. I really love reading them. See you next time!

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'wind up', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. This blog post is all about the phrasal verb 'wind up' and covers a range of different meanings from powering clockwork machinery to throwing balls in sport. In this article, I will explain all of the different meanings of 'wind up' to you and provide you with lots of examples of each one in context to help you understand, learn and use them in your English! So, without further ado, let's make a start. Don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own sentences featuring 'wind up' 😊 WIND UP: KEY INFORMATION Usage Common Number of meanings 6 Past tense forms Wound up / wound up Separable? Yes MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To make a device operate by turning a part To bring something to an end To formally close a company To make someone angry or annoyed To find yourself in an unexpected place or situation To prepare to throw a ball Photo: Pexels THE BASICS As per usual, let's begin by a quick analysis of the words that make up our phrasal verb of choice, which in this instance are 'wind' and 'up'. Firstly, we have the verb 'to wind' and before doing anything else, it's important that I clarify here that this is the 'wind' that us pronounced [ waɪnd] with a long 'i' sound, making it rhyme with the words 'dined', 'signed' and 'kind' and it's not pronounced like the weather element. The verb 'to wind' is an irregular verb, which primarily means to turn something or make it turn. It is most commonly used with ropes, cables, rotating handles and keys. It is often used in phrasal verbs such as 'wind up, 'wind down' and especially 'wind around'. Moreover, we also use it in a bit more of a literary way to refer to rivers, roads, paths or people when there are lots of turns and bends in their trajectories or journeys. John winds the cable around the post. You need to wind the rope until it becomes tight. The river wound through the mountains before reaching the ocean. Debbie wound her way through the crowd at the concert to find her friends. Next, we have the prepositional particle 'up', which is used in phrasal verb constructions to add the ideas of completion, increase, intensification, improvement and preparation, among others. Before we move onto the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'wind up', I just want to make you aware of another one, which is more of a literal meaning and refers to the process of winding something so that all of it, or as much as possible of it, is in the wound or coiled position (like in the photo to the right). This is mainly used with physical objects such as cables, ropes and hoses. After doing his DIY work, Roger wound up the cable to the extension lead and put it away. Please can you wind the rope up as much as possible when you finish so that it doesn't create a tripping hazard for people. So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move onto the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'wind up'.... MEANING 1: To make a device operate by turning a part Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To wind Separable? Yes The first meaning that we will cover in this post is one that is sadly becoming increasingly rare in everyday English and means 'to make a device operate by turning a part'. Specifically, the devices in question here tend to be clocks, watches, timers and certain toys, whilst the parts that needs to be turned typically include handles or keys. If you haven't already guessed, these are all mechanisms that run on clockwork by what is known as 'wind-up technology', which is a method of creating energy to power a device through energy that is stored in springs when a key or handle is turned. This is normally done simply by turning it several times. Jamie loves his new toy and all you can hear is him winding it up as he is playing with it. I forgot to wind up my watch earlier and now it's stopped and I don't know what time it is. How do you wind up a clock correctly? I've never done it before. As you can imagine, this form of technology is not seen so much in the modern world as it is slowly being replaced by digital and electronic devices but it is still worth knowing nevertheless! One more usage that I want to let you know about here is not with a mechanism that runs on clockwork, but rather a car window. I'm sure that many of you will remember a time when it was standard to have a manual crank in a car which had to be turned to open or close the window. To close the car window, you simply had to wind the crank in a specific direction to move the glass panel upwards and consequently 'wind up' also came to be used for this action. I can't hear what you are saying, can you wind your window up? The crank has broken and I am unable to wind up the window. Despite this technology having been superseded mainly by an electronic button meaning that no physical winding action is required, I still hear this being used today! MEANING 2: To bring something to an end Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To finish, to end, to conclude, to bring to an end, to finish up, to wrap up Separable? Yes Our next couple of meanings of 'wind up' are both to do with finishing or terminating something, with this next one being 'to bring something to an end'. Nouns that this is commonly used with: Activity Discussion Meeting Debate Visit / trip Tour You can see from the list of commonly used nouns above that we use this particular application of 'wind up' with nouns for activities that are organised, often in an official capacity. In particular, many of the nouns are used in reference to business and formal arrangements. For this application, when we wind something up, we finish or conclude it, however you should note that it tends to be used more when the the conclusion is a gradual process, rather than a sudden or abrupt one. For example, if you decide to wind up a business meeting, you initiate the procedure by summarising the clear points and setting up actions for the next meeting etc, slowly bringing it to a close. He tried to wind up the interview politely, but the interviewer kept asking more questions. As the event wound up, the organisers thanked everyone for their participation. We should wind up this call soon; I don’t want to keep you any longer. The meeting should wind up around 4 p.m., so we’ll still have time for questions. MEANING 3: To formally close a company Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? British English Potential synonyms To dissolve, to enter into administration, to liquidate, Separable? Yes Let's move onto a more specific application for our third meaning of 'wind up', which is used primarily in British English and means 'to formally close a company'. Normally, when a company can no longer continue to trade due to financial problems and bankruptcy, it has to be wound up. When this happens, people known as administrators are appointed to begin the process of winding the company up, which involves selling the company's assets to pay off any debts and creditors that they have until it no longer exists. Once this process has been completed, the existence of the company has officially ended. If you have to use English for work in the business world, you may also be familiar with the synonyms of this application 'to enter / go into administration', 'to liquidate' or 'to dissolve'. After years of declining profits, the board decided to wind up the company by the end of the fiscal year. They had no choice but to wind up operations once they filed for bankruptcy. The non-profit announced that it would wind up its activities due to lack of funding. The shareholders voted unanimously to wind up the business and distribute the remaining assets. MEANING 4: To make someone angry or annoyed Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Common Where is it used? British English Potential synonyms To annoy, to anger, to rile, to irritate, to provoke, to infuriate, to madden, to enrage, to tease, to play up Separable? Yes I would say that this fourth meaning of 'wind up' that we will cover now is perhaps the most commonly used one and it means 'to make someone angry or annoyed'. To better understand this concept, we need to go back to the idea from earlier in the post of physically winding something up like a clock etc. Just like winding a clock up creates tension in the springs, causing them to release energy, the buildup of tension in a person's nerves can lead to irritability and eventually losing one's temper over a period of time. This is the origin of this application of 'wind up'. Although it is possible for something to wind a person up, it is normally another person's behaviour or actions that is responsible for this negative energy. This can be completely innocently, without the "annoying" person being aware, however most of the time we use this application to describe when someone intentionally annoys or angers another person. Adam loves to wind up his little sister by teasing her about her favourite TV show. Don't let him wind you up; he's just trying to get a reaction out of you. Sue knew exactly what would wind Peter up, so she kept making jokes about his team losing. It really winds me up when people don’t clean up after themselves in the shared kitchen. On a grammatical level, you will often hear native speakers using the passive forms "to be wound up" and "to get wound up" to describe times when something has annoyed or irritated them in this way and they are feeling angry as a result. I get wound up when people don't say thank you. Sorry if I seem a bit tense, I am a bit wound up today as I've just had an argument with my neighbour. Stay out of Luke's way, he's really wound up about something and is in a very bad mood. Lastly, in British English, it is also common to use this application of 'wind up' in a more light-hearted way to describe playing a joke on someone, especially by making them believe something that is not true. Is this true or are you winding me up? We wound Debbie up and told her that she had to go to work today but of course she had the day off. MEANING 5: To find yourself in an expected place or situation Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synoynms To end up, to finish up Separable? No If you've read my recent blog post about the phrasal verb 'end up', then this fifth meaning of 'wind up' will seem very familiar to you as it is indeed a synonym of 'end up' and means 'to find yourself in an unexpected situation or place'. This can be used to describe when you come to be in an unintended situation, place or state, typically as a result of something that you have done or at the end of a series of actions or events. As with 'end up', it is common to use 'wind up' here with a gerund to state the unplanned action that you find yourself doing.... I always wind up spending more money than I planned when I go shopping. Tom and Lucy wound up arguing about the same issue they had been trying to avoid. Andrew winds up working late almost every night during busy season. We wound up staying at the party much longer than we expected. Alternatively, we can also use it with prepositions of place or an adjective to specify the unplanned place or state.... If you're not careful, you will wind up in jail. We took a wrong turn and wound up in the middle of nowhere. After wandering around for hours, they wound up at a tiny café by the river. They thought they’d be successful, but they wound up broke after the business failed. MEANING 6: To prepare to throw a ball Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Rare, specific Where is it used? American English Potential synonyms To pitch Separable? No Our sixth and final usage is one that is specific to baseball and consequently, is mainly used in American English. If you wind up when playing baseball, it means that you prepare to throw the ball by moving your arm into the correct position in order to get enough power to throw it - a little like the spring that we mentioned earlier to release energy. There are different types of throws or pitches in baseball however, and this one is only used (logically) for the windup pitches. Unless you are a fan of baseball, this usage will probably never be one that you need to learn, however it is always good to have at the back of your mind in case you ever get the opportunity to watch a game! The baseball player wound up and released the ball with a powerful pitch. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'wind up'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'catch out', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. The phrasal verb 'catch out' is an advanced level phrasal verb that is really great one to demonstrate and show off your English skills! In this post, I will explain 4 different meanings that it has from showing that someone has made an error to eliminating another player in a ball game. In addition, I will give you lots of examples of each one to help you to learn and use them in your English conversations. So, without further ado, let's make a start! Don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own sentence featuring 'catch up' 😊 CATCH OUT: KEY INFORMATION   Usage Common Number of meanings 4 Past tense forms Caught out / Caught out Separable? Yes MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To expose someone's deceit or error To trick someone into making a mistake To place someone in a difficult situation To dismiss a player from a ball game Photo: Pexels THE BASICS Regular visitors to this site will know by now that I like to start my exploration of a phrasal verb by looking at the words that make it up and so to begin, we will cover the words 'catch' and 'out' and consider what they mean on their own. The verb 'to catch' is a common irregular verb in English that is often heard in reference to intercepting objects and balls that are moving through the air with our hands. It is particularly common in sports, as we will see later. Aside from this reference, we can use the verb 'to catch' to talk about acquiring or obtaining things that are outside of our control such as diseases or people who are trying to escape from us. We also use to talk about getting on buses and trains. Moreover, if you catch someone doing something, it means that you find them taking part in an activity and if you catch what someone says, it means that you hear them. I'll throw my keys to you, so get ready to catch them. John is aiming to catch the 10.23 train tomorrow morning. Helen wore her mask to prevent her colleagues from catching her cold. The police caught the escaped criminal after an hour-long chase. Lucy caught her husband kissing another woman. Sorry, I didn't catch that. Please can you repeat it. The prepositional particle 'out' is the direct opposite of the particle 'in' and is commonly used in English to refer to being in an external place or, as an adverb, moving towards the outside of something. It is a very busy little word and can function as an adverb, adjective and preposition and less commonly as a verb and noun. When used in phrasal verb constructions, 'out' can add the ideas of completion, removal, emergence and distribution, among other things. So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move on to the meanings of the phrasal verb 'catch out'.... MEANING 1: To expose someone's deceit or error Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Common Where is it used? Mainly British English Potential synonyms To find out, to catch, to reveal, to expose, to uncover, to nail Separable? Yes You will have noticed in the picture above the word 'truth', which is particularly relevant for this first meaning of 'catch out' as this is 'to expose someone's error or deceit'. At it's core, this first meaning is all about revealing the truth of a situation and that can come in different forms. Before we continue, let me first explain the concept of deceit if this is a new word for you. The noun 'deceit' is the noun of the verb 'to deceive', which means to 'to lie to someone and mislead them into believing something that is not true'. So, to clarify, the noun 'deceit' is used to mean the action of lying to someone or deceiving them. A synonym of this word is 'deception'. Oftentimes, when a person is being deceived, it is not generally clear to them what is happening. They may be completely unaware of the deceit or they may develop some suspicions that the person is not being truthful with them over time. If the person being deceived can prove and reveal the other person is lying, we can say that they caught them out. Simply put, if you catch someone out, you find them to be lying to you or deceiving you. The detective was able to catch the criminal out when he noticed inconsistencies in his alibi. Emily tried to cover her tracks, but her boss quickly caught her out when her story didn’t add up. The teacher caught the student out when she claimed she’d read the book, but couldn’t answer basic questions about it. The interviewer caught Jane out when she couldn’t remember details from her own CV (resume). In addition to this, we can also use it to just refer to when we catch someone doing something wrong or something that they should not be doing. This could be anything from a teenager sneaking out of their home late at night to an employee in an office playing games on their computer rather than working. The manager caught Roger out checking social media on his phone during work hours. She caught her kids out sneaking chocolate from the cupboard after bedtime. The teacher caught out two students passing notes during the test. Simon caught his friend out taking money from his wallet without asking. Security cameras caught her out taking office supplies home without permission. On a grammatical note, as you may have noted from the examples given above, this is separable and we tend use this in a separable way most of the time, with the deceitful or naughty person being the direct object and going between the words 'catch' and 'out'. Note that if we are using a direct object pronoun (me, him, her), then this should always go in between 'catch' and 'out'. MEANING 2: To trick someone into making a mistake Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Mainly British English Potential synonyms To trick, to expose, to trip up, to wrong-foot, to nail Separable? Yes Our second meaning of 'catch out' is in fact a continuation of the first one that is mainly used in British English and means 'to trick someone into making a mistake'. In this meaning the deceiver becomes the deceived! It is definitely one for the detectives amongst you to use. Firstly, if we think back to the previous section when we talked about catching people out by showing them to be liars or doing something wrong, we can now take this one step further by actively tricking the deceitful person in order to show and prove their deceit. While in the previous section, we talked about finding out that someone was lying in a more passive sense by catching them in the act, this time we are trying to actively prove that the person is lying. Imagine the following example scenario... You suspect a friend has lied to you about attending a concert recently. Instead of directly confronting them about the lies, you ask them, "Did they play your favourite song" and then you name a made-up song title. If they respond with, "Oh yeah, it was amazing!" you’ve caught them out  by tricking them with a fake song title that doesn't actually exist. The interviewer tried to catch the interviewee out with a tricky question about his past experience. Lisa felt that her colleague was trying to catch her out by pretending to know less about the project than he actually did. The lawyer skilfully caught the witness out by pointing out contradictions in her statements. Journalists often try to catch out politicians by asking unexpected questions during live interviews. Moving away from liars and dishonest people, we can also use this application of 'catch out' to refer to any situation in which someone wants to trick someone into making a mistake, usually in an unexpected way. This sounds quite sinister and can often be used for negative purposes such as in court cases, but it could equally be something quite innocent, such as playing games, practical jokes, quizzes and sports. The interviewer caught me out with a question about a project I'd listed on my CV from five years ago. I could barely remember the details Don't listen to what he's saying. He is trying to catch you out to make you make a mistake. Some of the questions in the quiz are designed to catch you out. They look easy but they are not, so think carefully! MEANING 3: To place someone in a difficult situation Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To surprise, to catch unawares Separable? Yes The third meaning of 'catch out' that we will cover in this post is 'to place someone in a difficult situation' and is used when the situation is completely unexpected or the person is not expecting or prepared for it at all. As you can imagine from the above, this is used mainly to refer to undesirable situations in which a person finds themselves in by surprise. On a grammatical level, as these are often situations in which bad and negative things happen to us, we tend to use the passive constructions 'be caught out' and 'get caught out' with this application. Imagine a situation when you need to go the shop and as it is a nice day, you decide to walk there and back. On the way back from the shop however the weather changes and it suddenly starts raining heavily. As you had not expected this, you did not have an umbrella with you. You could then say that you were caught out by the rain because you unexpectedly found yourself in an unpleasant situation. Other examples in which we could use this here include finding a hidden charge to pay on an invoice that you were not expecting, missing flights due to time zone changes when travelling and having stress at work due to deadlines on projects being moved closer to the date. The forecast said sunny all day, but we got caught out by a sudden thunderstorm during our picnic. The climbers on the mountain were caught out by snow as they were making their descent towards the bottom. We got caught out by the public holiday - all the shops were closed and we had no food in the house. Our team got caught out when the client moved the deadline forward by two weeks without warning. MEANING 4: To dismiss a player from ball game Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To dismiss, to eliminate Separable? Yes Our fourth and final meaning of 'catch out' is one that will interest you if you enjoy playing or watching ball games as it means 'to dismiss a ball player from a game by catching the ball'. This is one that you will hear being used specifically with the sport cricket (but it may also be used with baseball and softball), in which players have to bat (hit) the ball in order to score points. If a player on the opposite team then catches the ball that the batter has hit, the batter is immediately dismissed from the game, or in other words is out and can no longer participate. The first England batsman was caught out after only one over. The aim of the game is not to get caught out as that will mean instant dismissal. The batsman got caught out playing across the line to a straight delivery. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'catch out'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it with your English-learning friends. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'come across', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. 'Come across' is a really common English phrasal verb and is a great one for you to master and have in your active English vocabulary. You may have just come across this website online now or you may be a regular visitor but either way, I hope it comes across well! If you did not fully understand the last sentence, do not worry as I will explain all of the meanings of the phrasal verb 'come across' in this article. So, without further ado, let's go....don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own sentence featuring 'come across' 😊 COME ACROSS: KEY INFORMATION For more explanation of the terms in the table, click here Usage Common Number of Meanings 3 Separable? No Past tense forms Came across / come across MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To move across something towards someone (literal) To find something unexpectedly To seem Photo: Pexels THE BASICS Before we look at the different ways that 'come across '  can be used, let's first look at the basics and consider its individual component words 'come' and 'across'. Firstly, we have the verb 'to come', meaning to move from a place in the direction of where the speaker is.  Alternatively, we can also use it to refer to movement towards where the speaker was in the past or will be in the future. Are you coming to my party later? John came to work in his best suit today. A red car was coming towards us. The second part of the construction is the prepositional particle 'across', meaning from one side of something to the other. 'Across' does not feature in a great many phrasal verbs but when it does it can add the ideas of discovery, communication and movement, all of which we will cover in this post as we look at the different meanings of 'come across', which we will do now.... MEANING 1: To move across something towards someone (literal) Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Separable No Potential synonyms To come over, to cross Having looked at the meanings of the individual words 'come' and 'across', it brings us to our first meaning, which is the literal meaning of the combination of these two words: 'to move across something towards someone'. This could be a road, a field, a city, a room, a bridge a building, or anything else that a person or an object can move across from one side to the other. Remember that in order to use it though, the person or object must be moving towards where the speaker is (or where they were or will be in past and future tenses). Photo: Pexels She came across the room to tell me something. I've come across the city especially to see you. The horse is coming across the field towards me. Although this literal meaning of 'come across' is used relatively often by native speakers, we often use the synonym 'come over' (link here ) instead. So now we have looked at the literal meaning of 'come across', let's now move on to its idiomatic meanings.... MEANING 2 : To find something unexpectedly Photo: Pexels ​CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper Intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms ​To find, to run into, to discover, to stumble across Separable? No The second meaning of 'come across' that we will cover in this post is perhaps the most common usage of it in English and means 'to find something by chance or by accident'. In other words, to find something without wanting, trying or meaning to do so. Typical nouns that this application is used with: Website Person Video / Image / Picture Book / Article To elaborate, we use this particular application when we want to express that we had no intention of finding what we found. This carries neither positive nor negative connotations; it is simply used to talk neutrally about an experience. As you can see from the table above, it is often used for information as well as sources of information, such as the internet, media or books. It is not uncommon for language learners like yourselves to use it when talking about discovering a new word in the language being learned. I've come across this Greek word and I don't know what it means. Are you able to help me? I was going through my emails today and I came across an important one from my boss that I had missed from last week.               Whilst Roger was studying English grammar earlier, he came across this interesting blog all about phrasal verbs!                                                             Furthermore, we can also use 'come across' to talk about people who we meet and in this sense, we can say that we come across someone, rather than something. In this case, it usually means that we see or meet the person by chance rather than finding them, although this could also be possible in the right context! I came across a man wearing a bright pink tracksuit in the park this morning. As we walked along the beach, we came across a group of surfers. Of course, this usage of 'come across' can be applied in reference to finding physical objects as well.... I've lost my wallet somewhere in the office today. If you come across it, please can you let me know.                                                                                                                                   After my father died, my mother and I were clearing out his things and we came across some old photos of him from when he was a young man. Although it is relatively informal, this application of 'come across' can be used in both business and everyday English and tends to be more commonly used than its non phrasal verb synonyms. In a negative sense, we use it to express that we have not seen or heard of something before and therefore this is typically in the present perfect tense. In my entire career, I have never come across anyone whose behaviour is as bad as yours! Have you ever come across this question in a job interview? MEANING 3 : To seem Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Transitive or Intransitive? Intransitive (no direct object) Separable No Potential synonyms To seem, to appear, to come over The next idiomatic meaning of 'to come across' that we are going to look at in this post has a very similar meaning to the verb 'to seem' and is used to express how someone or something is perceived by another person. When used this way, the conjunction ' as' should be used before the noun or adjective. You can also use a verb in this construction, however it must be in the gerund form. Examples of usage.... He comes across as a good guy but in reality he is not at all! The solicitor came across as professional. I John comes across as being highly motivated. It is common for native speakers to use 'come across' when expressing their first impressions of another person, especially if the first impression is a little controversial or negative. Alternatively, it is also used to talk about how someone was perceived in a particular situation, such as giving a presentation. I haven't spoken to my new manager much yet but to be honest he comes across as a bit arrogant! Well done, you have got the job. I have had some really good feedback from the interviewers who said that you came across really well in the interview! I had a date with a guy last night and he came across as a bit strange, so I don't think I want to see him again. In addition, if you really want to use 'come across' in an advanced way, then you should know that we also use it to express how emotions or ideas that are expressed in speech, music or films are felt or perceived by people. Used in this way, there is no direct object and so for this we either require the conjunction ' as' or a noun or adjective to follow afterwards. When the King was talking about the death of his mother, his sadness came across in his voice. He is a passionate teacher and that comes across when he is in the classroom. Photo: Pexels TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF HOW 'TO COME ACROSS' IS USED BY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS If you can memorise some of the sentences below and use them in a conversation, it will help your English to come across as more natural and like that of a native speaker: I've never come across [noun] before. I came across your [noun] online He / she comes across as [adjective] / a [noun]. If you go to [place], you're sure to come across....... This is the best [noun] I have ever come across. This is the worst [noun] I have ever come across. Photo: Pexels POTENTIAL IELTS QUESTIONS Describe the most polite person you have come across in your life What type of noise do you come across in your daily life? Discuss some of the most interesting people you have come across in your life Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'come across'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'end up', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. In this post, I will be covering the super duper common phrasal verb 'end up'. This is a phrasal verb that I hear being used all the time in everyday English by native speakers and the good news is that it only has one core meaning. To make things easier however, I have split the meanings into two subcategories in the post to help you to grasp the different ways that it is used. Additionally, I have also included a third section, detailing different prepositions that often follow 'end up' as using these will make your English sound nice and natural. So, without further ado, let's make a start. Remember to share your own sentences using 'end up' in the comments section at the end. 😊 END UP: KEY INFORMATION Usage Common Number of meanings 2 Past tense forms Ended up / Ended up Separable? No MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To finish a journey or activity somewhere To do or become something that you had not intended Different ways of following 'end up' End up + Gerund To end up like To end up as To end up with Photo: Pexels THE BASICS To begin our exploration of the phrasal verb 'end up', let's first consider the words 'end' and 'up' and what they mean on their own. Our main verb in this post is 'to end', which is a common English verb that is used as a synonym of 'to finish' or 'to stop' and is used to indicate when something concludes. 'To end' is a regular verb and can be used both in a transitive way (with a direct object) and an intransitive way (without a direct object). Interestingly, it is rarely found in other phrasal verbs besides 'end up'. My ex-partner and I decided to end our relationship. The football match ended in a goalless draw. What time does the event end tonight? Next, we have the prepositional particle 'up', which I know you are all very familiar with. 'Up' is typically used as a preposition and adverb to describe movement in an upwards direction or being situated in a higher position relative to something else. 'Up' is widely used in phrasal verbs, including some of the most commonly used ones, like this one, and it can add different nuances to the main verb, including movement to a higher place, preparation, closure and perhaps most relevantly for this post, completion. So, now that we have considered the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'end up'.... MEANING 1: To finish a journey or activity somewhere Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To finish, to end, to wind up Separable? No As I mentioned at the beginning, there is really only one meaning of 'end up' in English, however it is used in many different ways and scenarios. Consequently, to make things easier for you to process all of the information, I have divided this post into two separate sections and this first sub-meaning is 'to finish a journey or activity somewhere'. Situations in which you may hear this sub-usage of 'end up' To specify where you end your travels To specify where you end a series of activities When you go to a place that you had not planned to go to To describe when a person moves to live somewhere unexpected When someone goes to jail / prison Since this sub-usage is all to do with movement or travelling, it will come as no big surprise to you that we use it to talk about the specific places and locations that an activity finishes. As such, you will hear it being used with prepositions of place such as 'in' and 'at', as well as proper nouns for specific places etc. One such activity with which we use 'end up' in this way is travelling, particularly when it involves going to multiple cities or countries, to specify the final destination of the traveller's journey. Furthermore, you can also use it when talking about a series of activities that involve going from location to location within a specific city or area, for example a walking tour of a city or a bachelor / stag party that visits many different pubs and bars. We are planning on driving down the west coast and ending up in Los Angeles on the final day of our trip. After backpacking across Europe for a month, they ended up in a small coastal town in Greece, where they decided to stay for a few extra days. We are going to go to several museums today and we plan to end up in the Louvre. Whilst it is likely that you will hear 'end up' being used in this way if you have native English speaker friends who enjoy travelling, you should note that it is much more common to hear it being used when you go somewhere unplanned (or at least somewhere unplanned at a point in the past when you last spoke to that person). Moreover, it is frequently heard when someone's plans changed in some way and they went somewhere that they had not originally intended. This can be either short term or long term plans, including where someone eventually lives or even when someone goes to jail. They ended up in Paris for their vacation instead of Rome. John always wanted to move to France but he ended up in Scotland. He'll end up in prison if he's not careful. Sometimes, we use it when when we go somewhere as a result of something unexpected happening, e.g. if you planned to go to the beach but your son broke his arm, you would have to go to hospital instead. In this case, we would be likely to say that we " ended up at the hospital " as it was not intended or planned. Helen ended up in the emergency room after slipping on the ice. I ended up in London as the shop that we went to in Oxford had sold out of the shoes that I wanted to buy. Alternatively, it is equally used to describe when you go somewhere that you hadn't planned to go to after going somewhere that you had planned to go to. For example, if you went for a quiet drink with a friend and after a few glasses of wine, you decide to go dancing in a nightclub, you would tell people the next day that you " met your friend for a drink and then ended up in a nightclub ". We've all done it! 😉 He ended up at his friend’s house after the party. Lastly, it could simply also be used to describe a time when you found yourself somewhere by accident, perhaps as a result of getting lost or making a mistake. We got lost in the city and somehow ended up back at our hotel. How did we end up here? Did we take a wrong turn? MEANING 2: To do or become something that you had not intended Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To end, to go, to wind up, to become, to turn out to be Separable? No Now, let's move on to the second sub-meaning of 'end up', which is 'to do or become something that you had not intended'. In contrast to the previous meaning, we use this one primarily to refer to things that happen in the long term and this is usually when referring to what happens to someone in their life as they grow up or after we lose contact with them. Typically, this is followed by a noun or an adjective, however there are several other prepositions that also follow this, which I will explain to you in the next section. John ended up a policeman, which is strange as he was always in trouble at school. Martin ended up poor and homeless after the collapse of his business. We can also use this particular sub-usage for when we want to predict what we think someone will be or do in the future. If you eat all of your vegetables, you will end up big and strong like your Dad! I think he will end up dead before long if he can't quit taking drugs. In addition to people, we do also use 'end up' in this way to talk about objects and things.... Don't leave your clothes next to the shower or they will end up wet. My last skateboard ended up broken after a car ran over it. Let's now move on to the next section, where I will explain to you how to really refine and develop these different uses of 'end up' so that your English sounds top notch (excellent).... DIFFERENT WAYS OF FOLLOWING 'END UP'.... Photo: Pexels With both of the above sub-usages of 'end up' that I have explained, although you will hear them used in the ways that I have explained above, I think you are perhaps more likely to hear them with a gerund or other specific prepositions. So, the next section will focus on these and if you can memorise these and use them, it will definitely elevate your English... WITH A GERUND When the phrasal verb 'end up' is followed by a verb to describe an action, the verb must be in the gerund form rather than the infinitive. Native speakers use it this way all the time and so if you want to sound more natural when you speak, then definitely do this too! To clarify, we use a gerund after 'end up' when we want to specify the outcome of an action or the conclusion of a series of events. As with the previous meanings, this is used particularly often when the action or conclusion is not one that was expected or anticipated. In these cases, the gerund represents the final action that takes place, rather than a specific location. In addition to an unexpected outcome, we use 'end up' + a gerund when the result of something is surprising, accidental or even unavoidable in some cases (see the last example below). We ended up staying at the hotel because the campsite was full. She ended up working late after an unexpected meeting. He ended up sleeping on the couch because the bed was too small. Thanks to the government's new corporation tax increases, we are going to end up losing money. Roger and Lisa argued so much that they ended up breaking up TO END UP LIKE We use the expression 'to end up like' + a noun when we want to compare a final state or outcome to another situation or person. It is often used in a negative way as a mild threat, to imply that someone or something will reach the same undesirable outcome as the person or situation being referred to. In other words, we are using a bad example of something to try and stop a future potential outcome from happening. Other times, it can also be used to communicate your own fears about yourself and something that you want to avoid in the future. If you don't start studying for your exams, you'll end up like your father and won't have any qualifications. If you don’t take your job seriously, you might end up like those people who struggle to find work. I hope I don’t end up like my old boss, stressed out all the time. TO END UP AS Another word that frequently follows 'end up' is the preposition 'as' and we use the construction 'to end up' + as to talk about a person's final identity or role after a series of events or a career progression. It could also be used to describe the outcome of a process, in which one thing changes to another. He wanted to be a musician, but he ended up as an accountant. If you want to end up as a doctor, you will need to study very hard. The debate ended up as a heated argument, despite having started very calmly. The book she wrote ended up as a bestseller, which surprised everyone. Sam thought the building would be demolished, but it ended up as a museum. TO END UP WITH The last word that we are going to consider in conjunction with 'end up' is 'with'. We use the construction 'to end up + with' to describe what someone has after a series of events or actions. Moreover, it can also denote the final outcome or situation of something. In all of these situations though, it implies that the person or subject possesses something as a result of the actions or events, whether that be physically or emotionally. It can often be used to refer to health conditions or illnesses that someone gets as a result of something. Simon ended up with a cold after walking in the rain without an umbrella. We ended up with extra tickets to the Elton John concert as some of our friends couldn’t come. Debbie ended up with a broken leg after the skiing accident. Stacey and Lesley ended up with a beautiful house after years of saving. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'end up'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

A detailed explanation of the English phrasal verb 'give up', with examples and exercises. Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. This is a post about the super common phrasal verb 'give up'. I imagine that many of you will already be familiar with this phrasal verb from its links with stopping smoking etc, however there is a lot more to it than that. In this post, I will guide you through its different meanings and provide you with lots of different examples to aid your understanding and learning. So, without further ado, let's make a start. Don't forget to leave a comment at the end! 😊 GIVE UP: KEY INFORMATION For more explanation of the terms in the tables, click here   Usage Common Number of meanings 5 Separable? Yes Past tense forms Gave up / Given up MEANINGS (click to jump to each one) To surrender something To stop doing something To stop trying to do something To abandon hope To surrender to the police Photo: Pexels THE BASICS As per usual in each post on Phrasal Verbs Explained, we'll start by looking at the individual words that make up the phrasal verb 'give up'. Firstly, we have the common verb 'to give', which means to freely or willingly offer or provide something to someone. Implicit in the meaning of the verb 'to give' is that the person who gives no longer has something or is without something once the action is complete. This is an idea that will recur in the idiomatic meanings that we will look at in this post, so it is worth remembering this. My fiancé gave me a diamond ring and asked me to marry him. No, I don't have your key. I gave it to you. Secondly, we have the prepositional particle 'up', which primarily means a movement in the direction away from the ground or towards a higher position. When used in phrasal verbs, 'up' can also carry abstract meanings such as completion, readiness and improvement, among other things. So, now that we have considered the word themselves, let's dive into the figurative meanings of the phrasal verb 'give up'... MEANING 1: To surrender something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper Intermediate Usage Medium British or American? Both ​Potential synonyms To relinquish, to renounce, to cede, to hand over, to sign away, to part with Separable? Yes Normally on this blog, I like to start by considering the literal meaning of the combination of the two words (if one exists). As you can imagine though, the combination of the meanings of the words 'give' and 'up' does not really provide us with a very concrete meaning that is applicable to our daily lives in the modern world. However, if we take a look into the past, then the literal meaning of 'give up' becomes much clearer.... Let's go back in time to the Middle Ages and consider the life of a typical farmer in Northern Europe. At this time, a strict social hierarchy existed, with three social classes: the upper class or nobles at the top, the middle class with doctors and merchants etc in the middle and the lower class or peasants at the bottom. This latter class is the one in which a farmer would have fallen into. Work on the farms was very tough and farmers worked long hours all year to grow crops until harvest time, when they had to surrender a large proportion of their hard earned produce to the landowners. In other words, they had to GIVE the crops to the higher classes, which in the social hierarchy, is very much in the direction UP and this is potentially how the phrasal verb 'give up' came to mean 'to surrender something'. If we fast forward back to the present day, we no longer use 'give up' to talk about surrendering something to a higher power, but rather when we decide to surrender something in general. In other words, we decide that we do not want to (or cannot) own something anymore and therefore make it available for other people, regardless of their position in the social hierarchy. This meaning is often (but not always) used when we give something up against our will i.e. when we do not want to part with it but we must for some reason. Often, the nouns that we use with this application of 'give up' are for things that are very important to us, such as houses, jobs and even children. For this reason, it can often convey a negative and strong feeling. I had to give up my house when I lost my job as I could no longer afford the mortgage repayments. Janet was only 15 years old when she fell pregnant and had to give her baby up as she was not in a position to be able to care for it. When we moved into our new apartment there was a no pets police, so sadly we had to give our cats up. Helen gave up her job to look after her sick mother. It is worth remembering that the focus of this usage is not that we are giving something to another person (in the sense of the verb 'to give'), but rather the idea that we no longer have something because we surrendered it or let somebody else have it. Another noteworthy noun that is often used with this application of 'give up' is 'time'. People say that they give up their time when they agree to either spend it doing something for another person or doing something they do not want to do. I choose to give up my time at weekends to help out at my church. Sarah gave up her Saturday mornings to teach her friend's son French. On a grammatical note, it is very common for native speakers to use 'give up' separably in this context, however it should be noted that there is no change in meaning if used separably or inseparably; it is purely personal choice. Have you ever had to give up anything against your will? Tell me in the comments here . MEANING 2: To stop doing something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate ​Usage Common British or American? Both ​Potential synonyms ​To stop, to quit, to cut out, to forgo, to eschew Separable? Yes Nouns used commonly with Smoking, eating meat, drinking alcohol In the previous section, I explained how 'give up' can mean 'to stop owning or having something' and for this second usage, we will continue with this theme of stopping. This next meaning of 'give up' is probably the most commonly used by native speakers and it is 'to stop doing something that you regularly do in your life i.e. a habit'. This is often a permanent stop, but can equally refer to a temporary pause of a habit for a limited period of time. This application of 'give up' is perhaps most commonly used when someone stops smoking (they give up smoking), but you are also likely to hear it with regard to stopping other long-term habits, for example when a person becomes vegetarian (they give up eating meat) or decides to stop drinking alcohol (they give up drinking). I've been trying to give up smoking for 3 months but I've not succeeded yet. The doctor told me I need to give up drinking alcohol. John gave up eating bread and lost a lot of weight. You may have noticed in the examples above that this usage of 'give up' is followed by a gerund, so make sure you avoid using the infinitive 'to' here as this is incorrect. An alternative to the gerund is to use the noun of the action that you are 'giving up' e.g. "I am giving up meat" or "I am giving up cigarettes". I gave up meat and dairy products and became vegan a while back but I really miss cheese. My mum had to give up her job in order to care for my elderly grandparents. BONUS INFORMATION Staying on the subject of giving up  a job or a career, we use the expression " don't give up your day job " when we want to say to someone that they are not very good at something in a humorous way. This is normally used to criticise someone in a friendly, joking manner and not normally said to cause offence. Check out the video below to hear it in use! Have you given up anything recently? Let me know in the comments section here . MEANING 3: To stop trying to do something Photo: Pexels ​CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper Intermediate Usage Medium British or American? Both Potential synonyms To stop trying, to lose heart, to call it a day Separable? No As you will all know, learning a language can be difficult and many people who start learning with the best of intentions decide to stop learning once they realise how hard it is, or in other words they give it up. That is because the third meaning of 'give up' that we will look at in this post is 'to stop trying to do something'....that's right, another meaning involving the idea of stopping something. To further illustrate this, here is another example for you: Imagine that your car breaks down and instead of calling a mechanic to repair it, you decide that you will repair it yourself. After looking at the engine for an hour to try and understand what the problem is, you decide that you cannot do it and call the mechanic. In other words, you gave up trying to fix the problem. The example above is typical of how this usage of 'give up' is used in everyday English, especially because we often use it when we give up trying to do something because we do not think that we can do it. This can often be when we are trying something new or learning how to do something and we find it too difficult, so we give it up. Moreover, another time that this is used is when we are doing something and it becomes difficult due to unforeseen problems or issues. I started learning Turkish last month but I gave up when I realised how difficult it was! Despite encountering many problems, my Mum didn't give up trying to build her business and it is now doing really well. My cat is really disobedient. I tried to teach him to follow basic commands but he completely ignored me and in the end I gave up trying. Lucy started an IT course at her local college but she gave it up as she didn't have enough time to study for it. Come on, you can't give up now. You've done so well and you're nearly at the end of the course! BONUS INFORMATION If you are ever in a situation in an English conversation in which you need to guess the answer to something, the correct way to say that you do not know or that you do not have any more guesses is to say "I give up ". This will then signify to the other person that you want to stop trying to guess and they will then (normally) tell you the answer. MEANING 4: To abandon hope Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper Intermediate Usage Medium British or American? Both Potential synonyms ​To despair, to admit defeat Separable? No As you will have noticed, there is a theme of 'stopping' running across the different meanings of 'give up' and this fourth meaning is no different to the others! In this case however, we are talking specifically about stopping or abandoning hope about something. The thing that distinguishes this from the previous three usages is that for this one we need the extra preposition 'on' in order to convey our message, giving us the construction 'to give up on something'. We use this particular construction when we stop hoping that a particular situation is going to change or improve. Consequently, this can mean that we also stop any efforts that we have been making to improve the situation and this can often be inferred in the meaning, (depending on the context). Typical situations in which native speakers use 'give up on' are romantic relationships that are not working, people that they are trying to help without success, plans that are not succeeding and ideas and plans for the future that they decide not to follow up. I had given up on the money that my friend owed me, so I was pleasantly surprised when he paid it to me. Roger fell into some bad ways as a teenager but his mother never gave up on him. I've given up on the idea of becoming a teacher as I don't think it is right career for me. IDIOM ALERT! Before we reach the end of this post, I want to make you aware of the English idiom 'to give up the ghost'. This is a fairly common expression in English which dates back hundreds of years and means to stop working or to die. It is normally used to talk about machines and equipment which stop functioning. If this is used for humans, it is usually used when you stop trying to do something because you realise that it will not be successful. My laptop has given up the ghost and I am need to go and buy a new one! I no longer had the desire or the money to continue my art project, so I simply gave up the ghost on it. One final thing to note here is that the expression "I give up" is often used by native speakers as a way of saying that we are frustrated with an unchanging situation or that we have lost hope about something (it could also be said when face palming or throwing your hands up in the air for added effect 😉). This can range from something that is mildly annoying to something very serious. MEANING 5: To surrender to the police Photo: Pexels ​CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper Intermediate Usage Medium British or American? Both Potential synonyms To surrender, to hand oneself in, to give oneself in Separable? Yes - with a reflexive pronoun We have now arrived at our fifth and final usage of 'give up', which brings us full circle to the beginning again as it is 'to surrender yourself to the police or authorities for a crime that you have committed'. This application is used specifically for when a person willingly goes to the police station to say " it was me, I committed the crime " or it could alternatively be used when a person allows themselves to be arrested by the police. For this usage, the relevant reflexive pronoun (myself, himself etc.) needs to be used between 'give' and 'up' and the additional preposition 'to' is required before 'the police'. Examples of usage.... The bank robbers gave themselves up to the police after they realised that they could not evade capture for much longer. You need to go to the police and give yourself up! The hijacker refused to give himself up and remained in the building with the hostages for several days. Photo: Pexels BONUS INFORMATION One extra usage of 'give up' that I want to make you aware of is "to give it up for someone", which is a spoken request to a group of people to show their appreciation for someone by clapping, cheering etc. Don't forget to use it with the word 'please' 😜. Would you please give it up for [insert singer or group name] Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'give up'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it with your English-learning friends. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'put out', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. How well do you know the phrasal verb 'put out'? Do you know all of the different ways to use it in English? For example, did you know that it can be used to talk about topics as diverse as fires, physical injury, manufacturing and mathematical calculations?! Do not worry if you didn't as in this post, I will explain all of these different meanings for you, with lots of examples in context to help your understanding. So, without further ado, let's make a start. Don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own sentence with 'put out' 😊 PUT OUT: KEY INFORMATION For more explanation of the terms in the table, click here   Usage Common Number of meanings 8 Past tense forms Put out / Put out Separable? Yes MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To put something in an exterior place To extinguish something To publish or circulate To inconvenience someone To produce or manufacture To outsource work To dislocate a joint To cause a figure to be wrong Additional meanings and idioms Photo: Pexels THE BASICS As the first step in our exploration of the phrasal verb 'put out', let's consider the meanings of the words 'put' and 'out' on their own. The verb 'to put' is an extremely common irregular verb in English that native speakers use in a variety of different ways. Perhaps the most common of its meanings is 'to place' or 'to move something to a position', especially when referring to objects. I put my car keys on the table when I walked in. Where you have you put my coat? Aside from this meaning, 'to put' can also be used to mean 'to write' or 'to express in words' and it is frequently combined with prepositional particles to form phrasal verbs, such as put out, put on and put off. Speaking of prepositional particles, 'out' is a highly versatile word in English with a wide range of different meanings and uses. It serves as both a preposition and an adverb and can also even function as a verb. Additionally, it is the direct opposite of the particle 'in' and is used to talk about being in, or moving towards an external space. When used in phrasal verb constructions, 'out' can convey the ideas of visibility, completion, exhaustion, movement away from something and extinguishing. So, now that we have looked at the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'put out'.... MEANING 1: To put something in an exterior place Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level A2 - Elementary Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To take out, to leave out Separable? Yes Our first meaning of 'put out' is more or less the literal version of the combination of the two component words 'put' and 'out', i.e. 'to put something in an external place'. As you can probably work out, this meaning is essentially describing the action of taking something from an inside location or storage and placing it somewhere outside of that space. This is typically done in situations when we want people to notice or use the item that has been 'put out'. For example, when hosting an overnight guest, you might put out a towel for them to use in the morning, or when setting up a room for a party, you could put out ashtrays for smokers. The key concept is that the items that you put out are usually kept or stored somewhere internal like a cupboard or box until they are required. Can you put the menus out on the tables? I'll put a towel out for you in case you want a shower in the morning. Jane puts food out in her garden every night for the foxes to eat. You may have already guessed from the picture above that another time we use this is when we remove the trash (rubbish UK) from our houses and leave it by the side of the road to be collected. In this instance, it is likely that you will hear people referring to "putting out the trash" or "putting out the bins / rubbish", depending on which side of the Atlantic ocean they live. Don't forget to put the trash out tonight! Sally puts the bins out every Wednesday evening. MEANING 2: To extinguish something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B1 - Intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To snuff out, to turn off, to quench, to blow out, to dowse, to switch off, to turn out, to smother Separable? Yes The second meaning of 'put out' is 'to extinguish' and is mainly used for things that provide warmth and light. Nouns commonly used with this meaning: Fire / flames / blaze Light / Torch Cigarette Candle In other words, this meaning of 'put out' can be used to express when we stop a fire from burning or when we stop a light from shining and remove the source of heat or light. I would say that in contemporary English we tend to use this more to refer to extinguishing fire and things that are burning. While 'put out' is still used in reference to lights, it was more prevalent in the past when fire and candles served as the main sources of illumination. Today, it is more customary to use phrasal verbs like 'switch off', 'turn off', and 'turn out' when referring to lights. From a grammatical perspective, this usage is separable and is used both separably and inseparably by native speakers with no change in meaning. One common noun that you may hear this with, especially if you are a smoker, is 'cigarette'. If you put a cigarette out, you stop it from burning and producing smoke. Firefighters have been working to put out the blaze since 3am this morning. Do not go back into the building until you are certain that the fire has been put out. Jamie put his cigarette out and threw it into the bushes. Please can you put the light out now. MEANING 3: To publish or circulate Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To publish, to publicise, to circulate, to issue, to release, to spread Separable? Yes We live in an age of mass information and just as you are reading this blog post online now, we have information about anything and everything that we can access within seconds thanks to the internet. Of course, all of this information must be made accessible to people online, which is where our third meaning of 'put out' becomes relevant, as it means 'to publish something'. Nouns that this application is commonly used with: Information News Statement Music Single / Album / Song Book As you can see from the list above, this application of 'put out' can be used with any nouns to describe things that can be published, circulated or made available for public consumption. We use this with information in general when we want to make people aware of something and consequently then with news and news stories. If the police want to make some information about a crime or a situation public, they will put out a statement. Likewise, if a famous person wants to publicly apologise for something, they will put out an apology. When the Queen died, broadcasters stopped their normal programmes to put out the news. There are so many fake news stories that are put out online every day that it is difficult to know which stories to believe. The police are expected to put a statement out later today on the high profile murder case. The movie star put out a public apology for any offence that his comments had caused. Moreover, we can also use this application with music. If you ever listen to interviews with your favourite English speaking music artists, you will probably hear them talking about putting out a new album or new music, especially if the interview is in promotion of the new material. Likewise, authors and writers will also use 'put out' when talking about new books and work that they have done as an alternative to the verb ' to publish', although I think they use it less commonly than musical artists do. I've been working on a new album for the last few months and I am hopefully going to put it out early next year. The band put out a new single yesterday, which is expected to reach number one on the chart. My friend was signed to a publisher last year and is now contracted to put out two new books per year. MEANING 4: To inconvenience someone Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To inconvenience, to trouble, to disturb, to bother, to burden, to impose upon Separable? Yes The fourth meaning of 'put out' that we will cover is 'to inconvenience someone' and is a bit of a negative one in nature. Firstly, if you don't know what this means, it refers to creating a problem or inconvenience for someone, normally by causing them to make a lot of effort for you. Let's look at an example to help your understanding of this... Imagine you're hosting a dinner party, and one of your friends asks if they can bring their child, although you had planned an adult-only evening. You agree to let them bring the child, but now you need to make extra arrangements, like preparing child-friendly food or finding activities to keep the child entertained. In this case, your friend has "put you out" by creating extra work or inconvenience, even though you agreed to it. From a grammatical perspective, this usage is always used separably, with the direct object (the person experiencing the inconvenience) going between the words 'put' and 'out'. Furthermore, this is frequently heard in the expression 'don't put yourself out', which is used to advise someone not to do something if it will cause them inconvenience. My Dad had to drive my Aunt and Uncle all the way back to London as they refused to get the train and it put him out a bit. If you can prepare the report for tomorrow, I'd be very grateful but don't put yourself out. I can wait until next week if you don't have time. Naturally, people who are put out due to the selfish demands and requests of others often tend to feel angry or irritated and this leads me to tell you about the passive construction 'to be put out', which means 'to be annoyed or upset'. Although this expression is linked to the idea of inconvenience that we just looked at, it is in fact mainly used when someone feels offended or unhappy by something that someone has said. After John made that joke about Helen, you could tell that she was really put out. I was a bit put out by what you said but I forgive you now. MEANING 5: To produce or manufacture Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To produce, to manufacture, to fabricate, to yield, to churn out Separable? Yes The fifth meaning of 'put out' is a good one for those of you who want to improve your business English and also for those who work in manufacturing as it simply means 'to produce' or 'to manufacture'. Typically, we use this application for large scale manufacturing, i.e. for products that are mass produced in factories. We use 'put out' here to describe the amount of a product that is produced by a company or business, often over a period of time such as a month or a year. You may be aware of the noun 'output', which is a noun used to refer to this production amount and I'm sure that you don't need me to explain the linguistic link 😉 The factory puts out thousands of cars every month to meet global demand. They plan to put out more units of the smartphone after the initial batch sold out so quickly. The manufacturer puts out a wide range of appliances, from refrigerators to washing machines. Outside of the business world, one other way that we can use this application of 'put out', albeit in a slightly different sense, is with vehicles and machines. As the vast majority of these produce energy when they are operated, typically in the form of heat, power or noise, we can use put out here to refer to this energy that they create. We are still talking about production here, however it is in reference to energy, rather than manufactured items. The engine puts out 300 horsepower, making the car incredibly fast on the highway. The battery started putting out a lot of heat shortly after turning the machine on. This generator could put out enough electricity to power an entire building during a power cut. MEANING 6: To outsource work Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To outsource, to source out, to farm out Separable? Yes The sixth meaning of 'put out' is another one that is useful for anybody interested in business English as this one is 'to outsource work'. If you're not familiar with the term 'outsourcing', it refers to the practise of offering a contract of work to a person or company that is not part of your business. In other words, you recruit a person to do some work for you who is from outside of your organisation. Whilst the verb 'to outsource' is a perfectly good one to use in this scenario, you may also hear of companies "putting work out" as an alternative way to talk about this practice. The startup chose to put the design work out to a specialised graphic design firm to focus on marketing. Lisa's company put out their IT support to a third-party vendor to reduce costs. The organisation is currently in consultation about whether or not to put the manufacturing of its products out to companies abroad. MEANING 7: To dislocate a joint Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To dislocate Separable? Yes Let's move away from the business world and into the medical world for our seventh and penultimate meaning of 'put out', which is 'to dislocate a joint'. To clarify this, if you dislocate a joint, such as a shoulder, ankle or knee, then you move it from its normal position in the body. For example, if you put your shoulder out, then your shoulder bone is moved out of its normal place, causing a lot of pain and requiring a long period of recovery afterwards. Despite not being a joint, one other part of the body that this application of 'put out' is often used with is the back. If someone says that they have "put their back out", it means that they have injured their back in such a way that their movement is compromised and they are in a lot of pain. You should note that this is a very informal usage and it is unlikely that you will never hear a medical professional use this term, however it is certainly one that may come up in informal conversations with native speakers. He put out his shoulder while lifting heavy boxes at work. I think I put my back out trying to move that couch by myself. Elizabeth put out her knee during the football game and had to be taken off the field. Don't lift it like that or you'll put your back out! MEANING 8: To cause a figure to be wrong Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To skew, to distort, to misrepresent Separable? Yes The eighth and final main meaning of 'put out' that I want to explain to you in this post is 'to cause a figure to be wrong'. When I am talking about figures here, I am referring to numerical figures and in particular this application is used in reference to those that have already been mathematically calculated. If there is any kind of change that affects or influences the figures that were used for a calculation, resulting in inaccurate or different outcomes, we can say that the changes have put the figures or the results out. The unexpected expenses put out budget estimates out, so we'll need to revise them. The incorrect data entry put the final sales report out, leading to a significant discrepancy. A mistake in the formula put out the entire financial forecast for the quarter. ADDITIONAL MEANINGS AND IDIOMS As you will now be aware, 'put out' has a surprising number of different meanings, however there are some other specific meanings that I want to quickly explain to you, as well as some idiomatic expressions featuring 'put out' that are in common use in everyday English.... To put out for someone - This is an informal and slightly vulgar expression that means 'to agree to have sex with someone'. It is more American in usage but I hear it more and more in British English now too. Did you put out for him in the end? To make someone unconscious - If you've ever had to undergo a medical operation, it is likely that you had to be put out for it as this means to be made unconscious by the use of drugs or anaesthesia. We are going to have to put you out for this operation. To put out to sea - This is an expression that is used to refer to boats and ships. When they put out to sea, it means that they leave the harbour or port and sail out into the open ocean. The ship is due to put out to sea at 6pm, so please make sure that you are back on board an hour beforehand. To put out feelers - This idiomatic expression is used to mean to explore or investigate a situation in order to get some feedback before making any official announcements or changes. This can often be simply asking for people's preferences in a given situation. Let's put out the feelers with the staff and gauge how they would react if we implemented the changes. To put someone's nose out of joint - Earlier on in the post, I explained how we can use 'put out' with joints like ankles and knees, however we can also use it with a nose, albeit in an idiomatic way. If you put someone's nose out of joint, you offend them or disrespect them in some way and it is often linked to when someone's pride is hurt. His constant criticism of her work put her nose out of joint, and now she’s not speaking to him. To put someone out of their misery - This final idiomatic expression that I will share with you is one that means to end a long period of waiting for information by telling someone the information that they have wanted to know. Oh, please just put me out of my misery and tell me what the results of my IELTS test were. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'put out'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it with your English-learning friends. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'get at', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them. In this post, I am returning to another phrasal verb featuring the verb 'to get', which I know from my students is a nightmare verb for English learners. The phrasal verb 'get at' is a fairly common construction in English with at least 5 different meanings and uses, which range from physically reaching something to illegally influencing someone. In this post, I will explain these different meanings for you and give you lots of examples of each one in context to help you understand them and learn when to use them. So, without further ado, let's get started. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own sentence featuring 'get at' at the end 😊 GET AT: KEY INFORMATION For more explanation of the terms in the table, click here   Usage Common Number of meanings 5 Past tense forms Got at - Got / gotten at Separable? No MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To reach something To discover information To imply something To repeatedly criticise someone To illegally influence someone Photo: Pexels THE BASICS As usual, let's begin our linguistic exploration by first analysing the meanings of the individual words that make up our chosen phrasal verb, in this case 'get' and 'at'. The verb 'to get' is one that needs no introduction as it is extremely common in English, with a large variety of different meanings and functions. As I've stated in previous posts, the verb 'to get' is a firm favourite amongst English native speakers as it is nice and short, so we can easily use it in place of some longer synonyms such as 'to understand', 'to receive', 'to become' and 'to obtain'. I don't get what you mean. Please can you explain. Helen got a new car for her birthday It gets cold in here during the winter. Like 'to get', the prepositional particle 'at' is very common in English but it is not so prevalent in phrasal verbs. When used as a preposition, 'at' primarily functions to indicate specific locations and times, e.g. 'at home' or 'at 5 'o'clock', but can also be used to specify activities and directions towards targets e.g. "he is good at English" or "he threw the ball at me". When used in phrasal verb constructions, 'at' may function to indicate focus or attention towards something and often also adds some context about direction or intention to the main verb. So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'get at'.... MEANING 1: To reach something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To reach, to obtain, to access, to gain access to Separable? No The first meaning of 'get at' that we will look at in this post is 'to reach something' and is normally used for things that are difficult to access in some way. Before continuing, I should point out that this meaning is all to do with physically reaching or touching something, rather than reaching a goal or target in the more abstract sense. Firstly, if we consider the main verb 'to get', we find that one of its many meanings is 'to obtain something'. When we combine this with the particle 'at' to denote a specific location, we arrive at the idea of obtaining something that is in a specific place. Furthermore, we often use the verb 'to get' when the action that we are trying to do is difficult or impossible (in the negative sense) and this idea of challenge or impossibility is carried across to this first use of 'get at'. So, to recap, we now have the main idea of trying to obtain something that is in a place that is hard to reach or access. This application is therefore frequently used for items that are hidden or locked away, items that are placed in a high position and out of our reach and items that are difficult to physically access and touch with our hands, perhaps because they are inside a small space. This is not limited to just these three examples though and 'get at' can be used for anything that is tough to reach or access. John dropped his wedding ring down the sink and it got stuck in a place where he could not get at it with his hands. I have to store my cats food in a closed cupboard to stop them getting at it. Lisa did not want her children playing with their phones anymore, so she put them on a high shelf where they weren't able to get at them. MEANING 2: To discover information Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? American English Potential synonyms To find out, to get to Separable? No The second meaning of 'get at' is really a continuation of the previous meaning and is 'to discover information'. In the last section, I explained how 'get at' is used to talk about physically obtaining or accessing something but for this usage we are concerned more with obtaining information, particularly when it is not easy to acquire. Most commonly, this application is used with the noun 'truth', typically in situations in which the reality of something is unknown and we need to do some investigation work to discover what it is. Again, as with the first meaning of 'get at', the idea of difficulty is implied from the verb 'to get'. In addition to the truth, other nouns that you may hear this being used with are 'cause', 'solution' and 'root'. After a long period of questioning, the police finally got at the truth. Do you think we will ever get at the root of this problem? Susan and her team think that they have gotten at the solution to the IT issue. As a native British speaker, this application sounds quite American to me and in many cases, in British English, we would probably use 'get to' as an alternative here. MEANING 3: To imply something Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To imply, to suggest, to mean Separable? No Our third meaning of 'get at' is 'to imply something', or in other words, 'to communicate something without directly expressing it'. This application is a great one to use for situations in which a person is being vague and unclear during a conversation and you do not understand the message that they are conveying. This may be because the person is just not being clear enough, however more often than not, it is when the speaker is saying something in a subtle way that only certain people in the group will understand. This can often be something unpleasant or a criticism of some sort that the unclear person does not want to say openly. Consequently, in response to this unclear speech, it is common to ask "what are you getting at?" when you want to invite the other person to clarify and state explicitly what they mean. On a grammatical level, when we use this application of 'get at', we often do not require a noun following the word 'at', especially when it is in a question. Did you understand what Peter was saying in the meeting? I'm not sure what he was getting at. What are you getting at, Debbie? Just come out and say it! I think that the point that you are trying to get at is that you think we should work fewer hours. Is that correct? MEANING 4: To repeatedly criticise someone Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Mainly British English Potential synonyms To criticise, to tease Separable? No We now move on to the last two meanings of 'get at', both of which are quite negative in nature. The first of these two negative meanings is 'to repeatedly criticise someone'. This is primarily a British meaning, so it is one that I am very used to hearing, however I am sure that if used in conversation with someone who speaks a different variation of English, the other person would have no problems understanding it. To reiterate what I said at the beginning, if someone is getting at you, it means that they are persistently critical of you or, alternatively, continually tease or bully you in an unkind manner. Moreover, it could also be used when someone intentionally annoys or irritates you. The main idea is that it happens regularly or often and that the recipient of the activity does not enjoy or appreciate it! From a grammatical perspective, this application is often (but not always) formed using progressive ('ing) tenses. My boss keeps getting at me and I don't know what to do about it. Some of my son's classmates are always getting at him because he is overweight. Why are you getting at me today? Have I done something to you? MEANING 5: To illegally influence someone Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Rare Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To influence, to sway Separable? No We have now come to the fifth and final meaning of 'get at', which as I wrote before, is another negative one, and means 'to illegally influence someone'. This is a rare usage that you are unlikely to hear very often but you never know when it may appear, so it is always best to learn it just in case! The reason that this meaning is so rare is because it is only used in specific circumstances, typically involving criminals and the justice system. In this sense, if you get at someone, it means that you attempt to influence somebody who is involved in a court case to ensure that the outcome of the trial is the one that you want. This is usually done by offering them money (bribery) or by threatening them or their family. As you can imagine, this action is only effective for people who can actually change the outcome of a trial and so therefore this is a very limited number of individuals such as a judge or a jury member. Aside from the court system, it is also possible to hear this usage in reference to decision making at a high level in business or in government. Again, this is a rare usage. Regardless of who or what though, this action is corrupt and illegal, so it may be that you only ever come across this on English-language TV series or in movies. The criminal gang tried to get at the judge before the trial but they were unsuccessful. A few of the board member were got at and changed the way that they voted due to intimidation. We need to get at the witness before the trial to make sure that he does not say anything about us. One of the key reasons that the Prime Minister has security guards 24/7 is to stop people getting at him to influence his policy making and decisions. IDIOM ALERT There is one final idiomatic expression that I want to make you aware of before I finish the post and that is 'to get at it'. This is a nice and simple saying that means 'to start doing something' and is used predominantly in reference to work. This idiom is more common in American English but would be understood by non-American English speakers too. We have a lot to do today, so let's get at it. We had better get at it if we want to finish in time for the game later. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on it and reading it. I hope that you found it useful and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'get at'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END

An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'break out', with lots of examples in context Photo: Pexels Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs! 'Break out' is a common phrasal verb and one that many of you may already be familiar with if you have been learning English for a while. Are you familiar with all of its different meanings and uses though? Did you know, for example, that it can be used to talk about subjects as diverse as prison, skin conditions and celebrations? Don't worry if you didn't as in this post I will explain all of the different meanings of 'break out' and will give you lots of examples to show how it is used by native speakers. So, without further ado, let's make a start. Don't forget to leave a comment at the end with your own comments featuring 'break out' 😊 BREAK OUT: KEY INFORMATION Usage Common Number of meanings 4 Past tense forms Broke out / Broken out Separable? Rarely MEANINGS   (Click to jump to each one) To escape To start suddenly To develop a skin condition To take something from storage and start using it Photo: Pexels THE BASICS To start our exploration of the phrasal verb 'break out', let's first take a look at the words 'break' and 'out' and what they mean as individual words. The verb 'to break' is a common English verb, which is primarily used to mean 'to damage something and stop it from functioning'. Additionally to this, it's other less frequently used meanings include 'to end something', 'to interrupt something' and 'to become known'. John broke the window when he kicked the football at it. I've broken my arm and I can't play tennis today. This is very fragile, so please be careful with it and don't break it. It is an irregular verb and is often used to form phrasal verbs, such as 'break out', 'break down' (link here ) and 'break up' (link here ). The prepositional particle 'out' is one that is regularly found in phrasal verb constructions and therefore features a lot on this website. 'Out' is the natural opposite of 'in' and is perhaps most frequently used to talk about being in or moving towards an external space. As with most prepositions in English, 'out' has a multitude of different meanings and uses that are too numerous to cover here, however you should note that when used in phrasal verbs, 'out' can often bring the ideas of revelation, appearance, distribution and removal to the table. So, now that we have covered the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'break out'.... MEANING 1: To escape Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To escape, to bust out, to get out, to flee, to abscond Separable? Sometimes Let's begin with our first meaning of 'break out', which is 'to escape' and is primarily used when talking about prison, jail or captivity of some sort. This action is typically done in a defiant or forceful way, which is also inherent in the meaning of the verb 'to escape'. I think that after considering the meanings of the individual words 'break' and 'out' in the previous section, this meaning will hopefully be a logical one for you to understand. We have the idea of someone (normally a prisoner) who is inside a prison cell or enclosed space and, like most people, wants to be free. In order to get out of their cell and achieve this freedom, they will need to break something e.g. a window or metal bars In some cases, especially in more historical ones, this was possible to do, and this is likely how we arrived at this meaning. However, most modern prison cells are designed to be quite indestructible and physically destroying them to achieve this goal is not really a possibility. Nevertheless, 'break out' is still used to mean 'to escape from captivity' even if nothing is physically broken. You should note that we can also use this application of 'break out' with pets, like rabbits or hamsters, which live in cages or in enclosed spaces, to describe when they escape the confines of their living area. The prisoner broke out of his cell during the night and hasn't been seen since. Several of the captives tried to break out last week but their plan was foiled when they were caught by the guards. My pet rabbit managed to break out of his hutch this morning but luckily I found him happily chewing on grass on the lawn. You may have noticed in the table above that I stated that this particular usage of 'break out' is separable. The reason for this is because in situations in which one person or group rescues somebody from captivity or helps them to escape in some way, the expression 'to break someone out' can be used. On a grammatical level, the prisoner is the direct object of the sentence and can either go between the words 'break' and 'out' or after them. Personally, I think that we have more of a tendency to use this in a separable way with the direct object (prisoner) going in the middle of the two words. The gang members were able to break their leader out of jail without any of the guards noticing. The animals rights activists snuck onto the farm and broke all the animals out overnight. Lastly, it is also possible to use this application of 'break out' for situations in life in which we feel trapped or stuck. Maybe this could be something like a daily routine that is difficult to break or a relationship that someone wants to leave but cannot. 'Break out' can be used here to refer to the action of escaping these situations or changing the routine. I just need to break out of my daily routine somehow and do something different. Sarah finally broke out of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend a year ago. MEANING 2: To start suddenly Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level B2 - Upper intermediate Usage Common Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To start, to arise, to erupt, to happen, to begin Separable? No We now move on to the second meaning of 'break out' that we will cover in this post and this one is 'to start suddenly'. I think that out of all of the meanings of 'break out' that we will cover in the post, this one is the most common, although this is not really a good thing as this usage is often used for negative and unpleasant things, as you will see. Nouns that this is often used with.... War Fight Riot Fire Disease As you can see from the list above, this application of 'break out' is normally reserved for dangerous and undesirable actions or phenomena which start in a sudden or abrupt manner, often with no sign beforehand. We do not use this for everything that starts suddenly though, for example if you have a headache that started suddenly, you would not say that a headache has broken out (however we do use it for other types of health issues, as I will explain later). The children managed to cross the border just as the war was breaking out in their homeland. A fire broke out in the government building and caused a lot of damage. Fighting broke out amongst the football fans of rival teams. Another noun that you commonly hear with this application of 'break out' is disease and this is specifically in reference to infectious diseases and epidemics. If a disease breaks out, then a large number of people are infected by it, who then spread it to other people (we are all very familiar with this scenario). This can be either on a localised scale or a global one, but tends to be used more in the former to describe when a disease spreads quickly in a community, town, city, region or country. A virus has broken out at the city's hospital and visitors are being advised to stay away. The Spanish flu pandemic broke out in 1918 shortly after the ending of the First World War. This application of 'break out' is not all bad though and it can also be used to express when we start doing something suddenly in an unplanned or unexpected way, normally as an emotional response to something. Most commonly, this is heard with the words 'laughing' or 'crying', especially when they start very unexpectedly. The whole class broke out laughing when the teacher fell over. Roger broke out crying when he watched his daughter get married. Lastly, there is one happy and positive usage that I want to end this section with, which is 'to break out in song' (or the alternative 'break out into song'). We use this particular expression to describe when one person or group of people suddenly starts singing, often in an unplanned manner. The wedding guests broke out in song to wish the bride and groom a wonderful life together. Watch the moment when a group of train passengers break out into song in the middle of their journey to Liverpool. We also have the less common alternative 'to break out in dance', which is when a person or group of people start dancing in an impromptu fashion and this is something that you may have seen or heard on English language videos of people in flash mobs. MEANING 3: To develop a skin condition Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To flare up, to come out in Separable? No In the previous section, I explained how 'break out' is not used to describe sudden headaches or pains but is used to talk about infectious diseases and this next meaning is staying with the theme of health. This time, it is quite specific though as it means 'to develop a visible skin condition'. For this application, we require the additional preposition 'in' to specify the type of condition that is visible on our skin. To be more specific, where I have stated 'skin condition', what I actually mean here is a rash, which is defined as an area of the skin that becomes inflamed due to an allergy or adverse reaction and normally is visible as spots or one large red or discoloured area. Moreover, it is also possible to use it with acne (typical for teenagers) and hives. If you break out in a rash, red spots suddenly appear on your skin. This is often caused by heat, a disease, or a reaction to something, such as skincare products. I had a sore throat and a headache and I broke out in a rash all over my stomach and legs. Julie broke out in hives after stroking the cat. It is very common for teenagers to break out in acne but it is usually only temporary and lasts for a year or two. In some cases, you also hear people using 'break out' without the additional preposition 'in' or the name of the condition. This is absolutely fine to do, provided that there is enough context. For example, if you say that "something makes you break out" or "you broke out", the listener will likely understand that you are referring to a rash on your skin. This type of make-up always makes me break out, so I've stopped using it. Why is my skin breaking out all of a sudden? One other bodily reaction, also to do with the skin, that we can use 'break out' with here is 'to break out in a sweat'. This is used to refer to when you suddenly start sweating and can be for any reason. When some people get nervous, they break out in a sweat and start shaking. I broke out in a sweat in bed last night. MEANING 4: To take something from storage and start using it Photo: Pexels CEFR Language Level C1 - Advanced Usage Medium Where is it used? Everywhere Potential synonyms To get out, to take out, to remove Separable? Yes I know that all of the meanings of 'break out' that we have covered up until now have been mainly negative and unpleasant, so let's end the post with a more neutral, or even positive one. This fourth and final meaning is 'to take something from storage and start using it' and is very informal. The most commonly used noun with this particular application is 'champagne' and people use the expression 'to break out the champagne' when there is a reason to celebrate something and therefore they take a bottle (or two) out from storage in order to drink it as part of the celebrations. Aside from champagne, you can hear this in conjunction with anything that is taken from a place of storage in order to be eaten, drunk or used. Equally, if you want to show somebody something, particularly a skill that you have, you could use 'break out' here too, with the idea that the skill is stored somewhere deep in your brain and not on show all of the time. My parents are so happy that I passed my driving test that they have broken out the champagne! Come on, break out the chocolate, I am so hungry. In an attempt to impress the girl, Kevin broke out some French phrases, however his attempts did not work. Photo: Pexels BONUS: The Noun 'Breakout' Before I finish the post, I want to mention the noun 'breakout' (alternatively break-out) and the different meanings that it has. As you can imagine, some of its meanings are linked directly to the phrasal verb meanings but not all of them.... An escape from prison or captivity The prisoners were planning a breakout from the county jail. Quick or sudden success, normally used to describe companies or famous people who become famous very quickly. This is more American in usage than British. This album proved to be the singer's breakout album. A room in a business or an organisation where people can go to discuss things away from their other colleagues. This is often known as a breakout room. Let's go and discuss this in the breakout room. Photo: Pexels We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts. Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'break out'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!! Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published. Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊 THE END