'Put' in Phrasal Verbs - put down, put back, put off, put up

Hey guys, I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking and welcome to this lesson on phrasal verbs with

"put". As an intermediate student or an advanced student in English, you should be familiar

a little bit with phrasal verbs and today we're going to focus on one, two, three, four

different phrasal verbs, all of which use "put". The first one is "to put down". Now

"put down" has two definitions. If we look at these two sentences, let's see if you can

guess what they mean by the context. The first one is "My boss always puts me down." So let

me ask you, do you think your boss gives you compliments in this sentence? No. Do you think

your boss criticizes you? Yes. Okay? So if somebody puts you down, it means that they

criticize you or they insult you. They say negative things about you. Okay? So if you

work for a company and your boss tells you your work is terrible or you're always late

and you will never be anything in this company, they put you down. Okay? They insult you.

They make you feel small. Okay? Now what you might notice about this phrasal verb is that

I put "me" in the middle of it. If you don't know yet, some phrasal verbs in English can

be separated. Some of them cannot be separated. This is a separable phrasal verb, which means

you can put the subject in the middle of the phrasal verb or at the end of the phrasal

verb. Now, the one rule here is that if you put it in the middle, you can put a pronoun.

You can put "me." You can put "him." You can put "her." However, you cannot put "me," "him,"

"her," okay? "Us" at the end of the phrasal verb. If you use something at the end, it

must be an identified subject like Mark, Mary, John, Jim. So you have to say, "Let's imagine

this is not me, but this is him, and him is Mark." So you cannot say, "My boss always

puts down him." "My boss always puts down Mark" is okay. Okay? So again, to put someone

down is to criticize them.

The second example here is, "We had to put down our dog because he was sick." Now, if

your dog is very sick, if you have a pet, sometimes this is obviously a really tragic

situation, a very serious problem that can happen. It's reality. You might have to go

to the veterinarian, the pet doctor, and actually ask them to put down your dog, which means

to -- there's no nicer way of saying it -- to kill your animal. Okay? So if you put down

an animal, it means that you have to kill them because they are sick or they have some

kind of disease. Okay? So again, "put down," it can mean to insult somebody or to criticize

somebody or to kill a sick animal. Basically, to show mercy, to show pity for that animal.

Okay, the second phrasal verb we have with "put" is to "put back." Now, the sentence

is, "Could you put the milk back in the fridge?" So imagine that you live with a roommate and

they have milk, they have cereal, they pour milk into the cereal, they leave the milk

on the table. Okay? So what you want them to do is return the milk to the refrigerator.

You want them to put back the milk or put the milk back. Like I said before, this is

another separable phrasal verb. Actually, all of the phrasal verbs today can be separated.

Okay, so to "put something back" means to return it to its original location. Okay?

To return to the original location. Okay? And it's usually some kind of object that

you reach, you can take with your hand, and you have to put it back, return it to the

original location. So you can put books back, you can put fruit, vegetables, and food back

in the refrigerator. Not books in the refrigerator, books go on the bookshelf, right?

Okay, the next one is "put off." To put something off, in this example, "She put off her interview

because of an emergency." So this woman had an interview at a new company and she really

wanted to go. It was a very important interview for her. However, she had a family emergency.

Maybe her sister or someone in her family had a car accident or they're in the hospital.

So she had to call the company and say, "I want to put off the interview because I have

a family emergency." To put off does not mean 100% to cancel the interview. It means to

push it back in time. She will do the interview at a later time. So another word here is "to

postpone." She wants to postpone or put back. "Postponer" for you Spanish speakers, my pronunciation

of that is probably terrible. If you don't understand "postpone," it means to push back

in time. Okay, and again, you can also say, "She put her interview off because of an emergency."

Finally, we have "put up," and "put up" can have two meanings. The first one here, "They

put up a new statue in front of City Hall." Okay, so if you put up something, you can

put up a building, a statue, any kind of monument that you can think of, this means to build

or a word that might make you giggle a little bit, to erect something, okay? And finally,

we have, "Could you put me up for a night?" To put someone up means to accommodate them,

to give them a place to sleep and a place to eat. So if you partied, if you had a late

night, and you have no place to sleep, the buses are finished, the trains are finished,

everything is closed down, you can't find a taxi, you ask your friend, "Could you put

me up for the night? Could you give me a place to sleep? Could you accommodate me?" So again,

to put up can mean to build or erect, or it can also mean to accommodate. Okay, I'm going

to be honest, I am not 100% sure if I spelled it correctly, so check your dictionaries,

maybe you can correct the teacher. I'm pretty sure that's it, though. Okay, guys, so as

a review, to put down means to insult somebody or to kill a sick animal. If you have a pet

and they're very sick, they're very old, you have to put them down, or you can put down

somebody by saying negative things about them, criticizing them. To put back is to return

something to its original location. To put off something is to postpone or to push it

back in time. "I will do it later," like your homework. "I will put off my homework until

later." And finally, put up is to build something, to erect something, or to accommodate somebody,

to give somebody a place to sleep. If you want to test your understanding of these phrasal

verbs, and again, remember, there are many, many, many phrasal verbs that are very important

in the English language, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. All right, guys,

good luck with this, and take care.