BOE #14

when we confuse nouns and verbs

A friend wrote on his blog (August 14):

• This would definitely be a place I’d hangout if I lived around here.

What’s the problem? (Scroll down.)

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Should it be hangout (as written) or hang out?

Hangout is a noun.

• Ah, so this is the infamous neighborhood hangout.

Hang out is a phrasal verb (i.e., a verb + preposition).

• We liked to hang out at the infamous neighborhood hangout.

• Don’t let your damn tongue hang out, you idiot mouth-breather.

Lots of phrasal verbs have noun forms that are slightly different. Upon pain of looking stupid, don’t confuse the two.

True: you’re in no danger of looking stupid if the people around you are equally stupid. But as the French say (by way of Goethe), Dis-moi qui tu hantes, et je te dirai qui tu es. Literally, “Tell me whom you frequent, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Sort of an indirect way of saying Birds of a feather flock together. Sure: being conscientious about language isn’t everything, and people who are language sticklers are just superficial ninnies who constantly miss the deeper meaning, right? But you should know that there’s a price to be paid for stupidity.

Yes, ol’ George has a good heart—he’s honest, hard-working, and generous to a fault. But he’s a dumbass when it comes to self-expression, so we’re never quite sure what he’s saying.

Words matter. Discipline matters. Disciplined words are a good tool to have. Don’t regress to adolescence and resist this wisdom. First, it’s not my wisdom. Second, if you’re over 50, then shame on you for still being a psychological baby, resisting the advice of those who know better. Or as the kids say these days, bitch-baby (already bizarrely called obsolete by the Oxford English Dictionary).

Here are some phrasal verbs and their noun forms (sometimes hyphenated):

1. to break down → a breakdown

2. to fuck up → a fuckup (or fuck-up)

3. to blow up → a blowup

4. to blow out → a blowout

5. to check out → a checkout

6. to cut down → a cutdown (or a cut-down)

7. to pull up → a pull-up

8. to set up → a setup (or a set-up)

9. to bring up → upbringing (didn’t see that one coming, did you?)

10. to swing up → an upswing

11. to look out → a lookout, an outlook

12. to put through → throughput (a term for data flow)

13. to put out → output (for at least one meaning of put out)

14. to put in → input (for at least one meaning of put in)

15. to push over → a pushover

You get the idea. There are thousands of phrasal verbs. In the phrasal-verb form, the verb and its preposition are always separate. ALWAYS.

Phrasal verbs are also interesting in how they can mean different things. Take a look at a phrasal verb like to put out.

• Whoa. Teacher’s putting out some mean vibes this afternoon. (emit)

• Mitch, you need to put the damn dog out again. (take outside)

• “…if she is otherwise when I find her, I shall be very put out!” —Humperdinck, The Princess Bride (offended, annoyed, disturbed)

• Cherie put out the candle, and a sexy sort of darkness descended on her and Rick. (extinguished)

• Professor Kludgeson just put out an exciting new book on peristalsis. (published)

• Jennings’s injury put him out of the game. (kept from participating, ejected)

• How much of a signal does that tower put out? (produce)

• Yeah, but did she, you know, put out? (heh heh)

So now you know. Don’t ever let me catch you saying, “I’d hangout with him.” Unless you’d like both of your heads lopped off.

One last bit of trivia: phrasal verbs are one big way to know that English, despite so much Greek- and Latin-derived vocabulary, really is a Germanic language. Take the German verb steigen (climb, mount), for instance, and watch what happens when you switch up the prefixes. The meaning changes:

einsteigen → to get in/on (a bus, etc.) Wir steigen ein!
aussteigen → to get off/out (a bus, etc.) Wir steigen aus!
umsteigen → to transfer (while on a subway, etc.) Wir steigen um!

Non-Western learners of European languages often report that prepositions, found in phrasal verbs and elsewhere, are the hardest part of learning those languages. I can see why it’s so frustrating. Even native speakers of English have a hard time explaining subtle differences.

• I trust you. / I trust in you.

• She believes Tim. / She believes in God.

• Don’t touch me. / Your question touches on a sensitive topic.

And so on. English is a mess. You have to memorize a lot. If you’re a native speaker, it’s your responsibility to memorize a lot. Don’t just be a mental slob who says, “Bleh… what difference does it make?” That’s the path of the idiot. Care.

Study to show yourself approved [by God], a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. —2 Timothy, 2:15.

My fundamentalist physics teacher (who didn’t believe in any physics beyond Newton’s paradigm) wrote the above in my high school yearbook. Yay.

Show industry, not laziness.