Week 12 -We’re going through a mixed up phrase July 30, 2010
Posted by Liz Mead in : TESOL , trackbackCaptain’s Log: Have made great headway this week. The winds have been in our favour. I’ve spent most nights studying the maps of these new waters, and commissioned a new map from Cartographer Multi. A productive fellow and the best at the trade..he should be for what we’re paying! His latest map of the phrasal reef is the finest he’s done. I must admit it is splendidly detailed. When pouring over it, I found he’d named a shoal after himself – the rake!
We’re going through a phrase of multiple verbs. Verbs you can’t separate. Verbs that are increasingly popular in modern venacular, and all because of the Norman Conquest. Why those Saxons didn’t defend their phrasal territory a little better I’ll never know. Pesky romance and germanic languages!!
D reckons a set of coloured boxes will sort it out. I find her box technique as perplexing as her use of improvisation skills. What she lacks in acting ability she makes up for in enthusiasm and it’s impossible NOT to applaud such a bold attempt.
S taught us how to teach writing. 4 models to chose from (of course!) There are always 4. The class decided a mixed up version was the best to hone foundation skills and increase fluency. And produce an academic essay, flowery love letter or application letter at the end – fit for purpose.
So as we start Semester 2 with a multi-page 100 point essay that has turned my hair more grey (if that’s possible?) I craft this blog as testament to the e-genre -ation with this final verse:
It’s too late to pack up
And don’t believe we’ll get off (lightly)
So still sort of mixed up
but not sure that I’m put out (nightly)
Thank God this is just a phrase we’re going through!
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Just thought I’d weigh in here to defend those Normans. It’s true they invaded us almost 100 years ago (a mere blink of the eye to those of us with long memories) but …
(Please excuse me a moment)
Just flipping back there, you’ll notice that “weigh in” has no object so you could show it as 2 boxes (of the same colour) together. Oh, and “flipping back” is a similar set-up although it could conceivably be used transitively so there is a small chance of a block of another colour making an appearance and, if there were to be one, it could go in the middle between the other two bits because it’s a phrasal and not a prepositional verb – flip IT back. Wait a minute, I said “set-up” back there, didn’t I? So does that mean that mult-word verbs can morph into nouns? Yes it does, although the word stess changes as in –
“They broke UP last week” but “Have you heard about their BREAK up?”
(Now, where was I?)
Ah yes… those pesky Normans… well, they brought us a lot of things but they didn’t bring us multi-word verbs. We already had them. Loads of them. They did have a meteoric effect on the language of those little islands, though. They enhanced our vocabulary, for a start, which is why it’s so huge and full of subtle nuances. We can blame the unpredictability of English spelling on their arrival too. Just think if they’d left us alone and we might be speaking something akin to modern Scandinavian languages now, which would make it easier for us to spell as well as to chat up hot Norwegian blokes.
Ah well, the weekend’s nearly here and so I do hope you’ll all be listening carefully to Julia Gillard’s use of multi-word verbs over the next couple of days. I look forward to a full report the next time I see you.
In the meantime, do you think perhaps I should *get out more?
* “get out” is, of course, intransitive in this case and so you will only need 2 boxes of the same colour to show its pattern ……….
Oh, and what’s all this about my acting ability, …eh?
To be fair, I suppose I am a bit of a ham – a strictly vegetarian sort of ham, that is …