Common and uneducated?

George Campbell, author of the highly influential The Philosophy of Rhetoric, compared English (and other modern languages) with Latin and Greek as follows:

Campbell was criticizing English as an analytic language: its grammar is largely based on word order and separate words such as prepositions (‘pins, nails and cramps’). Latin and Greek, on the other hand, are synthetic languages which use verb and noun endings (‘dovetail joints’) to indicate tense, case and other relationships. Campbell was voicing the opinion of his time: Latin in the eighteenth century was the language of learning and of elevated prose, and was thus seen as inherently superior.

This elevation of Latin meant that phrasal verbs – which are usually composed of monosyllabic verbs and particles of Germanic origins – have often been seen as the poor relation of their Latinate equivalents, prefixed verbs. One nineteenth-century grammar complained that ‘there is still a great deficiency of single words, especially in the verbs, as appears in the custom of associating prepositions by annexation rather than incorporating them by composition: thus we use such forms as “to think of”, “to try on”, “to come by”, “to laugh at”, “to put off”, “to bring under”, and numerous others’ (Parminter, Reference Parminter1856: 153). The single-word alternatives to these phrasal and prepositional words are Latinate: put off could be replaced by postpone; laugh at by deride, and so on.

Unfavourable comparisons of phrasal verbs with their Latinate equivalents continue into the twentieth century. In The Modern English Verb-Adverb Combination (1920), the first book devoted solely to phrasal verbs, A. G. Kennedy takes a surprisingly low view of his subject: ‘[t]he development of these combinations is essentially a process of the common, relatively uneducated, mind’ (Reference Kennedy1920: 40), and ‘much of the usage [of phrasal verbs] is a result of linguistic laziness’ (1920: 44). In a later article, he deplores the ‘growing avoidance of many special verbs such as recover “to get over,” exhaust “to use up,” examine “to look over,” […] this disuse of such verbs threatens to cut down the active vocabulary of English very materially during the next few generations’ (Reference Kennedy1933: 6). Although Kennedy does not specify the reasons for his preference, it is evident that the ‘special’ verbs (recover, exhaust, examine) are Latinate. (He may also be referring to the fact that the Latinate verbs have single, special meanings, while the ‘lazy’ phrasal verbs have many meanings; I will return to this point below.) However, the fate of native English words improved throughout the twentieth century. In part this was due to campaigns for ‘pure’ or ‘plain’ English, most famously voiced by George Orwell, who argued against ‘pretentious, Latinized style’: ‘Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin and Greek words are grander than Saxon ones’ (Orwell, Reference Orwell1946). Choosing ‘Saxon’ over Latinate terms often means choosing a phrasal verb over a Latinate equivalent, in direct contrast with the alternatives proposed by Kennedy, above. For example, according to the Plain English Campaign's website, it is better to avoid calculate, comprise, discharge and exclude, and to choose work out, make up, carry out and leave out instead. This is also linked to the decline in classical learning; Latinate verbs are no longer transparent, and can seem lifeless. One early-twentieth-century commentator on American usage mentioned the American preference for phrasal verbs such as turn down rather than Latinate verbs such as reject, and points out that ‘[t]he advantage of the American idiom [i.e. phrasal verbs] is that it preserves the vividness of the metaphor, while in the English idiom [i.e. Latinate verbs] one has almost come to forget that the term employed uses any metaphor at all’ (Horwill, Reference Horwill1936: 195). That is, for many people the metaphors in Latinate verbs are dead: reject is no longer analysed as ‘throw back’, but is simply an opaque term.

Also, in contrast with Kennedy's ascribing phrasal verb usage to a particular set of users (uneducated, lazy ones), usage guides nowadays tend to compare phrasal verbs and Latinate verbs in terms of register. Some state baldly that ‘Phrasal verbs, which are verbs followed by prepositions, are too informal for academic writing’ (Hong Kong Polytechnic University). Other guides are more subtle in their recognition that some phrasal verbs, such as set out, carry out, and sum up, are acceptable in more formal registers, while others, such as put off and bring up, are not. However, even this indicates a certain negativity which is still attached to phrasal verbs. After all, the same could be said of most grammatical classes. Some adjectives are suitable for formal writing (overweight, unusual, wealthy) and others are not (podgy, wacky, minted), but this is not generally mentioned in sections on adjectives in usage guides. Some usage books – especially those written for non-native speakers of English – take a more positive approach. Since learners of English often find phrasal verbs difficult, and overuse Latinate equivalents even in informal situations (especially if their mother tongue is a Romance language), usage books for English learners often advise learners to choose phrasal verbs as the most natural option. For example, at the entry for apply meaning ‘put something onto a surface’, Cobuild English Usage writes that ‘In conversation and in most kinds of writing, you do not say that you “apply” something. You say that you put it on, rub it on, rub it in or spread it on’ (Sinclair, Reference Sinclair2004). This is a more positive approach to the register of phrasal verbs: rather than being discouraged in formal situations, they are encouraged in informal ones. It is debatable whether usage books for non-native speakers have an influence on those written for native speakers – they are quite different in content and focus – but the increased awareness of the uses of phrasal verbs in contrast to Latinate ones in an EFL context may be having a positive effect on their reception generally.

Allowing anything to mean anything

One of the most striking features of phrasal verbs is their tendency to have many meanings. Indeed, the book which introduced the term polysemy to English used phrasal verbs as an example:

This feature does not always invite praise. Polysemy was often criticized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: one usage guide asserted that ‘when we find in a language one word serving many needs, we may be sure that that language is the mental furniture of an intellectually rude and poverty-stricken people’ (White, Reference White1870: 81). Following this, we find critical comments about polysemous phrasal verbs. For example, Partridge (Reference Partridge1947: 326) complains about a reference to a bus taking off, arguing that ‘“take off” has several meanings already, both active and passive, and, unless we are to allow anything to mean anything and everything to mean everything else, some precision is advisable’.

Furthermore, we find many comments about the illogical nature of phrasal verbs which run counter to the ‘true’ meaning of either the verb or the particle. For example, one nineteenth-century usage guide goes into great detail about the illogicality of up in ‘taken up for a crime’ and lock up:

Such comments relate to the etymological fallacy: the belief that every word has only one true meaning. That is, it is assumed that up must mean ‘to a higher level’, whereas it has many other meanings: included in the 33 numbered senses in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (with many further subdivisions) are ‘To the notice or consideration of a person or body of persons (spec. of one in authority)’ (as in taken up for a crime) and ‘Into a close or enclosed state’ (as in lock up).

This fallacy was at its height in the nineteenth century, when writers like John Horne Tooke and Charles Richardson attempted to determine one single meaning for every word in English. Nowadays few people claim that there is anything inherently wrong with a word that has more than one meaning, although it is still common to find despairing remarks about the polysemy of such phrasal verbs as run down, or the apparent lack of logic in the fact that you can either fill out or fill in a form, with no difference in meaning.

Obesity in the language

It is often stated that Samuel Johnson was very critical of phrasal verbs: this myth seems to have originated with Logan Pearsall Smith who, in the tract in which he coined the term phrasal verb, claimed that because Johnson wanted ‘to do away with “grammatical irregularities”’, he ‘naturally disapproved of these idiomatic combinations’ (Smith, Reference Smith1923: 58). In fact, in the whole of Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), there are only sixteen phrasal verbs to which Johnson attaches a negative label – not many in a dictionary which includes hundreds of phrasal verb senses. However, the one type of phrasal verb which Johnson does criticize is the redundant phrasal verb. At fill up he notes that ‘Up is often used without much addition to the force of the verb’; at fall down he remarks that ‘down is sometimes added to fall, though it adds little to the signification’; he also comments on the redundancy of beat up, copy out, fell down and sue out. Other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts make similar comments about particular phrasal verbs: Campbell (Reference Campbell1776: Vol II, 278) comments of return back and come forth that back and forth ‘serve neither for ornament, nor for use, and are therefore to be regarded as encumbrances’; Noah Webster (Reference Webster1828) criticizes the redundancy of phrasal verbs such as fill up, breed up, bloat up, pen up and pucker up; and even the first edition of the OED, intended as a beacon of objectivity, remarks that ascend is ‘occas. emphasized by a redundant up’ and enter is found ‘with pleonastic in’.

In the nineteenth century there is an awareness of particular particles – especially up – being used redundantly. Of open up, one usage book asks:

By the mid-twentieth century the discussion of redundant phrasal verbs was a staple of usage manuals, and we find such comments as the following.

Such comments are based on the assumption that words must have identifiable separate meanings, whereas it is possible that they have different functions. Up, in particular, often has an aspectual (or, more accurately, an Aktionsart or ‘lexical aspect’) function: it shows that the writer or speaker sees the action as complete. For example, if you face a dilemma, you have a dilemma that needs to be dealt with (but you may avoid dealing with it); if you face up to a dilemma, you actually deal with it. If you eat a banana, you consume at least part of it (but you may leave it if you decide half-way through that you are not hungry); if you eat up a banana, you finish it (it would be odd to say ‘I started eating up my banana and then left it’). The same applies to other adverbial particles. You can start to return to something (for example, ‘The refugees started to return to their homes’), but you are unlikely to start to return back, because returning back is a completed act.

American parasites

Before the twentieth century, there were plenty of negative comments about redundant phrasal verbs, but no blame was apportioned to any particular set of users (except perhaps the ‘uneducated’ ones, and the occasional comment that certain combinations were Scotticisms). In the early twentieth century, though, these phrasal verbs began to be associated with American English. A series of letters in The Times (8–16 February, 1933) begins with one reader criticizing the Chancellor's use of the phrase try out in ‘try out the possibilities of these new methods’: the reader ‘cannot believe that [the editor] would put an Americanism into his mouth’ (8 February, 1933, 13). Other readers agree, criticizing the allegedly American cancel out, speed up, slow up, sign up, stand up for and check up, described as ‘American gate-crashings’. Later letters and articles in The Times display a similarly negative attitude: one reader asks: ‘Why does Sir John R. Marriott inflict on us the horrid Americanism of “face up to”? Why can he not simply and tersely “face the facts”?’ (17 August, 1934, 8); another asks, of man up, meet up with and study up on, ‘Must the strong, simple transitive verb, which is one of the main glories of our tongue, become as obsolete in England as it appears to be in America?’ (6 February, 1947, 5). An editorial piece (17 June, 1964, 13) complains about win out, help out and fire out, where

Usage books follow suit: Gowers (Reference Gowers1948: 41–2) writes that redundant phrasal verbs are an ‘infection which […] is spreading across the Atlantic [and] calls for watchfulness’. This belief that redundant phrasal verbs are a particular feature of American English (but are ‘invading’, ‘infecting’ or ‘gate-crashing’ British English) prevails today: as noted in the introduction, Evans (Reference Evans2000: 54–5) uses a similar metaphor when he describes phrasal verbs such as win out, stop off and check up on as ‘American parasites’.

How accurate are these comments? We can look at evidence about particular phrasal verbs in the OED, and find that some of these were indeed first recorded in American English, including check up (on), meet up (with) and win out. Others were in the language long before Americans could be blamed for them: stand up for is first recorded in 1608, in King Lear; help out in 1600. Others are relatively new, but with no evidence of being particularly American in origin or use: all the quotations for man up in the OED are from twentieth-century British texts, while speed up is first recorded in 1894 in the Westminster Gazette, with later quotations from a mixture of British and American texts.

There are plenty of other phrasal verbs which are at least as ‘redundant’, and which are firmly British in origin. Eat up is first recorded in 1535 in a translation of the Bible; gobble up in 1601. The first quotation for cool down in the OED is from a nineteenth-century British book; warm up in the literal sense (warm up food) is first recorded in 1848 in Dickens' Dombey and Son; in the figurative sense (warm up to a subject), the first quotation is from the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. As I have argued above, though, these are not really redundant, and neither are the phrasal verbs that are disparaged as Americanisms. The point of interest is that because people object to ‘redundant’ phrasal verbs, they associate them with American English, and neglect to mention the many British equivalents. It is notable that these objections first arose in the 1930s, around the time that American influence on British culture (especially through music and film) was beginning to be felt and sometimes resented.