I have written this post to draw your attention to when phrasal verbs can be written as one word. Now, let’s just look at why you’d sometimes find what is normally written as two separate words as a compound, either with or without a hyphen. The choice between the two is far from random. What’s happening is the phrasal verb has changed grammatical category; to be more precise, this means that it is no longer functioning as a verb but has become a noun or sometimes even an adjective. Therefore, this union is actually a rule which states that you need to join the words of a phrasal verb when it is being used as a noun or an adjective.
How do you know when it is being used as a noun or an adjective? It is not that difficult to recognise the grammatical class of words. You can quickly apply a test to the word you are examining. An easy test, for instance, is substituting the word with one that you are sure you know which category it belongs to by its function and its morphology. Here are some examples:
I wish I could get away more often. à I wish I could eat more often.
I am quite familiar with the verb eat, and I know that after the modal verb could you must use the bare infinitive; hence, it is a verb.
Many people in the summer go to seaside getaways. à Many people in the summer go to seaside resorts.
It is clear to me that the word resorts is a noun; in this case it also has the suffix ‘-s’ indicating the plural form of a noun, just like the word getaways.
The thieves had a getaway car. à The thieves had a yellow car.
What type of car was it? It was a yellow car. Words that qualify nouns are adjectives, and the words yellow and getaway in this example are no exception.
Now that I have demonstrated why get away can at time be getaway, lets look at some examples with other phrasal verbs:
Before going to the gate, you must check in (v) .
Don’t forget to go to check-in (n) first.
Please go straight to the check-in (adj) desk.
My car broke down (v) the other day, so I took it to the mechanics.
Our boss had been working too much, so she had a breakdown (n).
Fold the blanket up (v) neatly once you have finished using it.
I keep a fold-up (adj) bed in the study just in case I have extra guests staying overnight.
If you think there are too many pillows on the couch, just take some away (v).
I’d like to order a takeaway (adj) pizza, please.
The takeaway (n) from this blog post is to better understand when you can unite the two words of a phrasal verb.
Now it’s your turn to practice. Can you think of any examples of transformed phrasal verbs? Before you do, though, consider that there are some limitations on what to transform and how to transform.
One obstacle to beware of is that not all phrasal verbs can change into a noun and/or an adjective, at least not now. Why? Verbs, nouns, and adjectives belong to a grammatical category called open class. They are open because new terms can be added when there is a need to encapsulate a new concept with terminology. Consequently, when many people have the necessity to label something that is new, a new word is coined. Therefore, at this present time if the phrasal verb you’d like to use as a noun or an adjective is not normally used in such a way, it might be in the future.
Another problem can be seen from the above examples. Did you notice that at times the compound is hyphenated, and at other times it is one word, unhyphenated? If you did, you are probably wondering when you should hyphenate. Sadly, I cannot provide a formula here because it is a complex process. Generally, what happens is that once a popular hyphenated compound has been excepted into a large speech community of an official language for a long time, it loses its hyphen and becomes one word, but not always. Therefore, you must consult your dictionary.
Using the correct form of a derived phrasal verb as compound, including hyphenation if need be, may seem trivial to you, but it is important if you’d like to leave your reader with a good impression of your competency. You see, nowadays especially, your emails are communicating to the addressee information about you, just like when you speak to people. If there are noticeable mistakes in your writing, your reader may think you won’t give special attention to details in other areas as well. Moreover, you don’t want the evaluation of your written work in an exam to be marked down either. Therefore, apply this compounding rule correctly, and it will bring your performance from B2 to C2.
If you’d like some more insight into some other aspects of phrasal verbs, you could read How dare you blow me off like that! for some insight at the semantic level, or Picking up phrasal verbs to see some structural elements.
Why not contact me to request a free 20-second takeaway on another aspect of the English language. I’ll put your request on my list and start working on it as soon as I can.