Ooh, neat grammar post

Okay, fine, I know, many people are probably not as interested in grammar as I am. What can I say? This post at Kill Zone Blog caught my eye because I’m just the kind of person who instantly stops at posts like this: Phrasal Verbs, When an Adverb Is Not an Adverb

What is a phrasal verb?

Get out! Calm down. Carry on. Show off.

So a phrasal verb is a verb that combines with an adverb. Why are “out,” “down,” “on,” and “off” considered adverbs in the above phrases? They are obviously prepositions; everyone knows that if you are listing prepositions, “out,” “down,” “on,” and “off” would all be on that list. They are considered adverbs here because when a phrase has an object, then the item in question is considered a preposition: Get off the roof. When there is no object, as in Get off!, then “off” is considered an adverb. I sort of wonder now about this rule and why it works that way. Maybe the podcast Lingthusiasm has an episode about that.

Anyway, a phrasal verb creates a new meaning from the combination of two words. That meaning is separate from the meaning of the constituent words. If you say, “Carry on,” to someone, you don’t mean either “carry” or “on.” You mean something else.

This is neat! The post at Kill Zone Blog discusses the history of phrasal verbs, with a (really interesting!) observation that they haven’t always existed and that the first use of phrasal verbs was in 1154. (It was “give up.”)

Now, granted, in the 1150s, modern English didn’t exist, obviously. That was (I looked it up) Early Middle English. What was Early Middle English?

Þe Nihtegale bigon þo ſpeke
In one hurne of one beche
& sat vp one vayre bowe.
Þat were abute bloſtome ynowe.
In ore vaſte þikke hegge.
Imeynd myd ſpire. & grene ſegge.
The Nightingale began the match
Off in a corner, on a fallow patch,
sitting high on the branch of a tree
Where blossoms bloomed most handsomely
above a thick protective hedge
Grown up in rushes and green sedge.

Well, okay, there have been A LOT OF CHANGES to English since this poem, called “The Owl and the Nightingale,” was published. I guess I can believe that phrasal verbs weren’t in use as far back as that. They are certainly super common now. This post at Kill Zone Blog says that all the versions of phrasal verbs using “set” encompassed 60,000 such versions. Can that be true?

Okay, Wikipedia says The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, which required 60,000 words to describe some 580 senses (430 for the bare verb, the rest in phrasal verbs and idioms).

So, pretty much true, apparently. What are some of those? Set aside, set down, set up, set off, set forth, get set. Okay, fine, there do seem to be a lot. I thought of these in about two seconds. Sixty THOUSAND still seems like a stretch. I don’t plan to go look at the OED to check, though.

Regardless, I’m not sure I knew what the term “phrasal verb” actually meant until now. It’s not something that comes up a lot.

Nor does there seem much reason to specifically look for or think about these, except that, to the extent phrasal verbs also happen to be slangy, they may or may not fit the style of a particular work of fiction. That is, “Get out!” for leave is not going to sound like slang to any readers, probably, but “Get out!” as in “You’re kidding!” or “You’re making that up!” definitely will.

So, pretty sure everyone can get along just fine without knowing what a phrasal verb is. Nevertheless, glad I saw the post. Always happy to think about grammar and language.

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