THE
PHRASAL VERBS STORIES! © Vassilis Comporozos 2016
A
series of short entertaining and humorous stories (level C1-C2) structured
about the phrasals of a particular verb:
for learners of English, for those who love English and its idioms and for
those who adore short stories! Each short story covers the most basic phrasals
of a verb and some of the other idioms it is used in....
These
texts aim at helping learners to assimilate phrasal verbs in the context of
their use and are not intended in any way to substitute, just to supplement lessons
on phrasal verbs, that most important aspect of English language. I hope they
will make a nice reading. At the end, the
meanings of the idioms used are given. Go ahead and enjoy them!
Mr Turn-over’s story
Mr Turn-over’s story
© Vassilis
Comporozos 2016
Mr Turn-over was a
very successful businessman, owner of a food company specializing in tin food
and frozen products. His factory turned
over loads of money every year. He
never turned up late for work at his
office for a lot of things used to turn
up every day - not to mention the harsh competitiveness with other food
companies! He knew well that the company’s success depended on him and his
employees knew it too. He was quite an intelligent entrepreneur, having
inherited his company from his father, now deceased for ten years. His
factories turned out tons of products
every year, some of them new to the market, to suit the most demanding tastes since
he was always open to novelties and hated turning
new proposals down.. Bad products turned him off. He was careful not to turn out employees but to give them perks to work with greater
enthusiasm and zeal.
At every turn of his country you could come up against products of
his company. In short, he had turned out to be an exemplary
businessman! As it happens to be the case, a lot of other businessmen used to turn against him but he managed to turn them away through his savvy. The
truth is that he was immersed in the daily and monthly and annual turn-out of his factories.
One day, driving to work and
having just turned round a corner and
into a turn-off, he was halted by a
great turn-out of people blocking the way! A car, he learned moments later, had turned over. Luckily and miraculously the
driver had a close shave and got out of the car safe and sound with just a few
scars. He did not even get into the ambulance which had come to take him to the
nearby hospital.
Now, it is not part of this story
(nor is there room for it here) to relate the why and how of the accident, just
the aftermath of it! The protagonist of the accident was a fellow-student of Mr
Turn-over, whom our businessman recognized as they gave him the first aid outside
his crashed car and, to cut a long story short, they exchanged phone numbers and
they met over lunch some days later. It
turned out that Mr Turn-over’s old acquaintance had signed up a contract
for the publication of a collection of fairy-tales (which he had been writing
for years) and now his dream had finally turned
into a reality… Elated as he was at the prospect, he had forgotten all
about the accident! It was then that he asked Mr Turn-over the question, that
crucial question which was about to turn
the course of our man’s life. That is, he asked Mr Turn-over if he had turned his hand to his own childhood talent and dream…
Well, it so happened that this meeting
turned the tide of Mr Turn-over’s
personal history. At home now, ruminating on this turn-up and his childhood
ambition of becoming a great poet, our businessman turning up the radio (for it played his favourite song) decided to turn his back to work for some days so as to write. After all, he was the boss,
the owner of the company. Oh, what a surprising turn of events it was! He
immediately engaged in writing verses down, writing off the ones he didn’t
like, correcting, editing, finishing and… refinishing! He decided to give time
to his dream to bud, turning his life inside out! Needless to say, he read
voraciously.... He had now turned into a writer. No, he did not turn over his business to a new owner, no, he just hired more
people, managers as they call them, CEOs, to be more precise and he devoted
less time to his work now. He did not care if his personal earnings were not
that high as they used to be. After all, did those earnings matter anything
apart from some comforts they could give to him?
He
was now happier. Having more people to
turn to, as far as business is concerned, he could now put in two hours of
writing every day, or more, if it was weekend or if he cut down on sleep! He
felt like a student having to hand in essays to the teacher of a literature
class he simply adored! As for all these social meetings and events a businessman
is obliged to attend in the evenings, he now turned down almost all of them. To sum up, Mr Turn-over had indeed turned over a new leaf in his life, he
had become a poet...
But
being a poet was not the most important change. The most important one was that
he had found the courage and the bravery to turn
to his dream and seriously begin to fulfil it…
Definition of idioms used
turn
against to oppose
turn
away to refuse to allow sb to enter
turn
down to reject
turn
into to become
turn
off to repel, cause to feel disgusted
at
turn
out to
prove to be, to happen to be, to end up being
to produce
to send sb out of sth
turn
over (e.g. 100.000 euros) to do
business to the amount of (100.000 euros)….
to become inverted
turn
sth over to sb to give the control of sth to sb
turn
round to change the direction into…
turn
to sb to ask sb’s help etc.
turn
up to appear, arrive and attend
to increase the sound, heat etc
of a device
at
every turn everywhere, in every nook and
cranny
turn
the course of one’s life to
change sb’s life
turn
one’s hand to sth to to take
to an activity, to engage in sth
turn-off a
road through which vehicles can leave a highway
turnout
gathering
turn
the tide of sth to
change the direction/cause a reversal in a situation
turn-up
something
surprising (That’s a turn-up for the
books!)
turn
my back on sth to reject,
abandon sth
a
turn of events an unexpected change
turn
sth inside out to
cause big changes to take place
turn
over a new leaf to
decide to change one’s life for the better
References
http://www.dictionary.com/
Mr Go-ahead
Vassilis
Comporozos © 2016
Once upon a time, there was a man named Mr Go-ahead, married with two
kids, a boy and a girl. He had a decent job, being a teacher of Japanese
language in a small country, and a well-paid one since he was the only teacher in
his country, of this beautiful and fascinating language with all these
difficult-to-learn yet so fascinating characters! The name of the country I
can’t recall, but I can assure you that his wife was called Mrs Gohonest. As
for his kids’ names, ah, this detail I can’t bring to mind now.
Anyway, one day he
decided to go in for the elections,
the so-called general ones, those held every 4 years or so. His family went with his plan jubilantly, so proud did
they feel of him! He would be the first member of Parliament in their family,
the progenitor of a dynasty of politicians!
Mr Go-ahead knew
very well that a politician’s success depends on making the public go for his ideas. Oh, how our man wished
to see his name going down in history!
Thus, he goes ahead with his plans….
He announces on TV his candidacy for the party with the greatest possibility to
win – based naturally on the opinion polls. His constituency did not know,
however, that he never was for that party, besides his family, and that’s why
his wife went on at him as far as the
way he chose to go up the social
ladder. For, his family had really moral values, not fake but real ones!
Nevertheless, our
prospective MP had carefully gone over
his plan and its subtlest details. “Which is this plan?” you might ask. Ah,
that’s the simplest one you can possibly imagine. Mr Go-ahead would promise
this and that to his people and then, after having been elected, he would go back on his promises, explaining to
his voters that ‘since the country has been going
through a very critical stage and there is an urgent need for cutbacks, I -
unfortunately - can’t act according to my promises, which causes me a huge
resentment’. (That was the exact wording he meant to use after the elections). A
plan which didn’t go over well with his family, though.
Now, our politician
had not been reputed for his taste in clothes. For example, his shirts would
rarely go with his trousers, had it
not been for his wife who was in charge of his wardrobe, his ‘wardrobe mistress’
as he called her. The problem at that moment was that his wardrobe manager had gone away to her village due to his
change of ideas, mentality and view on life. What’s more, she had been followed
by her kids who were in absolute accordance with their mum. Hence, our
politician became the butt of people’s jokes, as far as his dress code was
concerned and he couldn’t stand that incessant mocking. Nevertheless, he did
have the knack of the politician and things almost went off as scheduled, mocking for his clothes excepted. Many
voters seemed to be persuaded by the way he put his messages across.
At home, however, he
felt completely alone. He also couldn’t cook, food in the fridge having gone off. The odour of the rotten meat,
in particular, could make a whole legion faint! He heavily relied on delivery
for his nourishment now, which is not the healthiest of one’s choices.
What’s more, his
wife appeared to politically have gone
over to his opponents or so his new friends in his new party had told him,
confidentially of course. ‘What’s going
on?’ he started wondering. ‘I seem to have a great possibility of getting
elected in spite of the ridicule I have
gone through and I don’t feel elated or glad or something like that,’ he
thought. ‘My wife and kids have vanished… I never expected they’ d react that
way when I decided to go in for the test. My life has
gone to the dogs. I can’t go through
that any more, I’m afraid. But, on the other hand, I may be an MP….’
Going out for a walk, and round
a corner he saw a 4-member family just like his, the only difference being
that that they were all of four of
them and in a happy mood. Back home now, lights had gone out and he couldn’t find where the fuse was, only his wife and
children knew! “How can I rule a country if I don’t know how to do simple
things” the statesman in him wondered. Then there was that cough which did not
intend to stop. (Needless to say, he had been having a cough for three days and
was afraid he might go down with flu
for he was not a very brave man as far as diseases are concerned.) ‘Where’s
that stuff my wife gives me for medicine’, he wondered. And he went on thinking
about how helpless he was. ‘I can’t go on like this any longer’ he said so
loudly that one might think he talked to someone else.
Deciding to go over things he realized that he
couldn’t be another person than the one he had been so far in his life, he
couldn’t go on telling lies as that
wasn’t his real self, the good-natured person he has in his inner self.
Moreover, his family’s going away had
taught him that what goes round, comes
round. ‘Oh, I’d better go aboard a ship,’ he went on thinking, ‘and hide into a tiny
speck of an unknown uninhabitable islet lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
than live this way. Oh, I want my real self and my life back…’
No sooner had he
finished this line of thinking than he phoned his wife and kids. No sooner had
he phoned his wife and kids than he rang the headquarters of his party to tell
them he would quit. No sooner had he rang his party than he publicly announced
that he had to stop his campaign due to personal reasons and that it was the
best thing for both himself and his country….
to go ahead (with sth) proceed to do sth
to go back on one’s promises not
to keep one’s promises
to go for sth try to get/desire sth, to have a
special liking for sth
to go in for be a candidate
to go off (of food) become spoiled, rancid
to go on at sb about complain to sb about/ criticize
to go on doing sth to continue doing sth
to go over sth examine/check/study carefully
to go through sth to experience/suffer sth
to go with sth choose sth, agree with,
to match sth
sth goes over well with sb sth
wins approval
what’s going on? What’s happening?
My life has gone to the dogs My
life is in a mess
lights go out there is a power cut and lights
do not work
to go down with (flu) get sick with (flu)
What goes round, comes round ‘the results of things one has done will
some day have an effect’ on one’s life, to reap what one sows
References
http://www.dictionary.com/
Mr Get-up-and-go
© Vassilis Comporozos 2016
Once upon a time (a perfect beginning for a story since through this we get rid of the burden of giving exact
details of the ‘when’) well, once upon a
time there lived a very energetic and sprightly person called Mr Get-up-and-go.
Mr Get-up-and-go used to work all day from morning till evening,or better, till
late at night. He got to work at 7:00
and stayed there till 23:00 p.m.! He was lucky in that his shop – a
medium-sized Super Market downtown – was easily get-at-able through the Tube and he hadn’t to get on and off this and the other bus at this and the other bus
stop. He didn’t have a car because he hadn’t managed to get through the exams to obtain a driving licence. Having failed
once, he did not have the courage to give it another try. He only wanted to get through his work selling things and
counting money and cheques and suchlike. ‘Get
down to work’ was his favourite motto.
He hated getting
up late (that it after 6:30 a.m.) for fear he may lag behind in his work.
Due to his extreme passion for working he did not get about his town often. He didn’t get along very well with people, either, not even with his
assistant. He was sprightly only as far as the fulfillment of his professional
obligations is regarded. He paid him well though, hence his assistant managed
to get by on his salary. Get-up-and-go
wasn’t a miser, no, he just was a workaholic, with all the consequences such a
thing may have in one’s life. So absorbed was he in his job that living with
him could really get you down! He was always getting at people who were getting some rest! Once he had been
accepted into the Open University to do a M.Sc. in Entomology (he loved
studying and dissecting insects!) but on second thought he saw that he could
not spend so much time studying for he should get the best out of his job.
‘I ought to get on with my work’ he used to think.
Naturally, no one could get any
confession on personal matters out of
such a business-minded person. As for marriage, he had no time for such a
trifle business! It got on his nerves
to see people lazing around, let alone having their work done by others! He knew
how to get around difficulties with
his business brain. He had only one assistant, not because he was stingy but
because he was a workaholic. During rush hours in his business you couldn’t get through to him on the phone. To be
precise, you could but if it wasn’t a phone call related to business
transactions he would hang up, telling you that he had so many business
problems to get over that he simply
had to get back to work!
Nevertheless, at
home at night he felt a void, a hole spreading across the tapestry of his
business – centered life, a hole no work of the business type could fill in. To
add to this, there happened a tiny strange and unusual incident one day… To be
honest, it was not that strange, nor unusual. Well, there got into his shop a man with a kid, a boy of around 7 years of age.
The man, tall and thin, with greying hair must have been getting on for 50, or so I guess! The little boy, with
the innocence and the air of the seriousness of a small child, started a
conversation (a monologue I mean) with the shop-owner, informing him that “my dad
had recently lost his job – he worked as an accountant in an office – well,
they had got into trouble, financial
they called it (my father explained to me it meant money problems) but
fortunately my mother has got a job and we’ll manage to get by on her salary, so dad says, but the best thing is that dad
does have a lot of time now to see me for he worked very long hours, his boss
pressed him that much because his boss is a grumpy, ill-tempered workaholic (so
the people in the office call him) and only likes money and nothing else and my
dad and the other dads there do not have time to play with their kids but kids
do want to see their dads.” He abruptly put a full stop here. His dad,
laughing, explained that he had been made redundant, although he was very diligent
in his job, but at least now he could spend time with his son for the first
time in his life, at which he felt jubilant. They had to move to a cheaper flat
in this area. Of course, it appeared very difficult for him to find a job now
but they would be able to get over trouble… He finished stating that “I harbor no grudge
or resentment against him”. The ‘because’ answer to the ‘why’ took Mr Get-up-and
go by surprise. “Bless those who persecute thee…”
Back at
home, our chap felt uneasy. For the first time in his life he felt he had
wasted his life in trifles… this and the next and the following night and day.
For the first time in his life he was getting
up to something new, something of a novelty for him… And what he had been
expecting for so many days, there came at last, for the same client got into his shop again and after the
basics of small talk Mr Get-up-and-go offered him a post in his Super Market.
Now our workaholic man had more free time, worked less, and what’s more, he had
given an unemployed man a well paid job with a schedule of eight hours per day.
Not only this, but Mr Get-up-and-go with his
three assistants (he hired one more in due time!) got up an hour later, having
got over his …workaholism!. That didn’t mean he had become a lazy person, merely
loitering about. No, not at all! Quite the contrary! He simply had realized
that humans must work to live and not live to work because he felt his …
workaholism had got away with his
life… So he had to get out of it
immediately…
Time went by and news got out that Mr Get-up-and-go dated a beautiful lady and they were preparing
to get married soon. He now got along well with his fellow-citizens…
Moreover, he was now filled with joy and love towards his fellow –citizens and when
they asked him how he got on at work
he answered that he worked hard to live and did not live just to work…
to be getting on for
50
|
To be reaching the age of 50
|
to get about my town
|
To wander around, go out
|
to get along (at/
with)
|
used to talk about how well one is doing in a
situation/with sb
|
to get around
difficulties
|
To overcome
|
to get at sb
|
Criticize somebody severely
|
to get away with sth
|
Steal and escape with sth (here figuratively)
|
to get by on sth
|
To make do with (e.g. a salary)
|
to get on with
|
To go on with sth/ continue doing sth
|
to get over sth
|
To overcome sth
|
to get rid of
|
To make one free from sth one does not need/
want etc
|
to get sb down
|
To make sb feel depressed
|
Get out
Get out of sth
|
To become known (here)
To stop having a habit (here)
To avoid a duty
|
to get through
(exams etc)
|
To complete/ pass sth
|
to get through one’s
work
|
To complete one’s work
|
to get through to sb
(e.g. on the
phone)
|
To get in touch with sb
|
to get down to sth
|
To begin doing sth seriously
|
to get up (late,
early etc)
|
To wake up
|
to get up to sth
|
To be busy with sth (esp sth surprising or
unpleasant)
|
Sth gets on one’s nerves
|
Sth annoys one
|
Get-up-and-go
|
Energy to do various things
|
get-at-able
|
Accessible, approachable
|
What are you getting at?”
|
|
To get
the best out of
|
To exploit sth to the full
|
To get
into trouble
|
To be involved into trouble
|
Note: Since get has also the meaning of ‘go’, many
collocations with prepositions such as get into/ out of are not difficult to
understand or use at all. Hence, they are not given here.
References
The story of Mr
Keepstohimself
© Vassilis Comporozos 2016
Once upon
a time, many centuries ago – people who told me that incredible story did not
quite knew or remember when – there lived a really strange, odd man in a big
mansion, a castle-like one, somewhere in England, or so they told me.
Mr Keepstohimself, for that was his name or so it seems, was a guy who always kept to himself, a really introverted
person, an anti-social fellow we could say, one who preferred standing aloof to
keeping company to people, to being
in people’s company. His aloofness had turned him into a meticulous sort of
person who would fly into a rage if you did not keep an appointment you had with him for some transaction.
Thus he indulged in keeping his life back from people. No one could exchange with him more words than
were necessary for the specific business he was on at that specific time, or,
to put it in other words, he kept people
from coming to his house, from dropping by to see him. In fact no one
desired to have the least social contact with him, except for his employees,
his workers and his servants, for he paid them well to guarantee that his
castle was run as satisfactorily as he wished it to be, according to his
thoroughness and his mania for perfection in everything he dealt with. Social
relations were excepted, for he had no relations of this kind and no one could
tell why that was so.
If children came close to his garden
he would shout ‘Keep off, Keep your
feet and hands off my garden. Keep away!’ The truth is he had a
spectacular garden with a plethora of trees, plants and flowers of an
astonishing variety which enthralled anyone who had the luck and opportunity to
watch them. But Mr Keepstohimself, a
most solitary type, cherished to keep his
garden back for himself! Money, he had lots of it, being the heir to an
enormous fortune. He did not like wasting it, though, but took every care to keep costs down. You could not say he was a miser, no, not at all. He quite
simply liked economy. His other care was some curious intruders who dared at
times to poke their nose and existence into his kingdom. Hence he was always on
the alert to keep them out, helped by hounds, dogs he had
bought at a quite high price and which he had ordered to be trained in the best
of manners for the sole purpose of keeping
everyone away, unless he was there,
in full person, to let someone in, when for example he had some business to do
with them…
Possessing such a mentality
prevented him from any wish to try to keep
up with other people. It goes without saying, he only wanted to keep up his own standards, standards
which he himself had set from his teens and now made every effort to abide by,
come rain or shine. By ‘standards’ we mean of course his passionate love for
solitude, isolation, aloofness, his
keeping away from people through thick and thin. Sometimes, nevertheless,
he felt the need to get in touch with his own people, his living relatives and
wished he had kept in with them but
quickly averted his mind from such thoughts, discarding them as a moment of
weakness, since he adored his life of complete loneliness and did not feel the
need to talk to people anyway. That is why he had lost contact with his
relatives. The truth is that his relatives used to pay him regular visits some
years ago but on seeing his taciturnity and his aloofness decided not to go to
his castle anymore.
Turning into a real agoraphobic now
he ordered everything he might need through the few servants he had, just a
handful of them. Rarely did he go out in the world. He thrust a ‘sign’ outside
his castle, reading “Keep out. No
entry to anyone for any reason.” He kept
on living this way day in day out. I forgot to say that especially he
couldn’t stand people who tended to keep
on about miscellaneous things non-stop! Keeping even more and more to
himself he stopped even going hunting, his favourite pastime. As for his
fortune, he didn’t want to leave anything in
somebody else’s keeping. This way of living, however, had a very high price
for he lived in the continuous fear that his house may be burgled in spite of
the guards. What’s more, he now started suspecting his own servants…
So, in keeping with his suspicions, he decided to build another wall
and another one round his castle to become more isolated! He would now stay
there for keeps! He even had a moat
built which he filled with crocodiles as was usual in stories of that era! Not
only this, but he also dismissed all his servants, guards and peasants to be
there completely alone! No one dared to enter, no one! Time passed, loads of
years elapsed, trees grew up, vegetation grew to an enormous level surrounding
the whole place on all sides, covering the entire castle from top to bottom.
Then there came a time that no one
was sure if there had been a castle with a lord in this place deep inside that
forest! Everybody could see the forest but no one the castle. It was as though
the castle had kept to itself. No one
remembered the castle now. Only some legends survived of a mysterious solitary
man who had a castle there in the distant past. But, whether it was a legend or
a reality, no one can say now, not even me! I don’t know, I am so confused, I
can’t believe this story. And, to tell you the truth, that lord’s name was not Mr Keepstohimself! I made it up so as to
tell you this sad, most unreal story. As for this little lie of mine, you have
no other option but forgive me!
Definition of idioms used
to keep sb/sth away
|
to prevent sb/ sth from going somewhere
|
to keep back
|
to stay at a distance
|
to keep sth back
from sb
|
to refuse to tell sb sth
|
to keep sth back for
(oneself etc.)
|
to retain sth for (oneself etc.)
|
to keep sth down
|
to keep sth (e.g.) at a low level
|
to keep sb from (doing)
sth
|
to prevent sb from sth
|
to keep in with sb
|
to stay friendly with sb
|
to keep off sth
|
to avoid sth
|
to keep on (doing )
sth
|
to continue
|
to keep on (at sb)
about sth
|
to nag at sb, to talk non-stop about sth
|
to keep sb out
|
to not let sb enter a place
|
to keep out (of sth)
|
to not enter a place
|
to keep up doing sth
to keep up the
standards
to keep up with sb
to keep up with sth
to keep up with
sb/sth
|
to continue doing sth
to continue with the same standards
to be in contact with sb
to be aware of news etc
to move (lit/fig) at the same rate as sb/sth
|
Phrases with keep
|
|
To keep (oneself) to
oneself
|
to be introverted/to avoid meeting people
socially
|
in keeping with sth
/ out of keeping with sth
|
In /not in agreement with sth
|
In sb’s keeping
|
Being taken care by sb
|
For keeps
|
For ever
|
How are you keeping?
|
How are you doing?
|
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