9 Impossible Phrasal Verbs…EXPLAINED!

Phrasal verbs are one of the trickiest parts  of English. The meanings can be confusing and  

there are so many of them that seem similar but  don’t have definitions that are related. Today,  

we’ll learn nine essential phrasal verbs  and I’ll give you plenty of examples from  

real life so you exactly how to use them  to express yourself in English effectively.

First, pass off. To pass something  off as something else. This means  

to try to make people believe that  something is different. For example:  

It’s a fake Gucci bag but she  tries to pass it off as real.

I mean, that’s kind of what music is for. That’s  the thing that’s valuable about it. There’s such  

a thing as, like stealing culture or whatever  and trying to pass something off as your own.

Trying to pass something off as your own.

Can these signs be mistaken for something else  ever? Like slurred speech, could you be having  

a major migraine. Do people sometimes  maybe pass it off as something else?

People sometimes maybe pass  it off as something else?

And that’s simply because his body of work is  so massive. It’s plausible therefore to steal  

a let’s say, a minor Rembrandt, and pass it  of as something that was here to for unknown.

and pass it of as something  that was here to for unknown.

What really makes us grimace when it  comes to the cereal is how it’s marketed.  

The company basically tries to pass it  off as something healthy when really,  

you’re just eating chocolate  infused carbs brimming with sugar.

The company basically tries to  pass it off as something healthy

So if you pass something off as something else,  

you try to make people believe  something about it that isn’t true.

She stole his ideas and passed  them off as her own in the meeting.

She tried to make people believe they were hers.

Hang tight. This simply means ‘to  wait’, to wait to do something.

The other day, I was on a flight.  It was delayed and the pilot said,  

“Were just going to have to hang tight until  we get more information. We didn’t know when  

the mechanic was going to be able to  fix the plane, we just have to wait.

Reboot. Try rebooting the  system. Yeah, I’ll hang tight.

Success? Bravo.

Yeah, I’ll hang tight.

Now, what I want to do is ask you to  hang tight until the end and I’m going  

to tell you what we’re going to cover next month.

what I want to do is ask you to hang tight.

And to those of you who have decided  so, I invite you to just hang tight  

with me for a second, because I think I  have a little bit of explaining to do.

Hang tight with me for a second.

After all of our speakers have given their  presentation, you will have a chance to uh,  

engage in some questions  and answers with them so uh,  

just hang tight because I know  you have lots of questions by now.

Just hang tight.

So, really quickly, we’re going  to take a break but it’s not a  

real break as we don’t want you to leave the room,  

so if you all would hang tight here for about  five minutes, we are going to clear the stage.

so if you all would hang tight  here for about five minutes.

Hang tight. To wait.

Water down. We often think of this  with drinks, When the ice melts,  

it waters down the whiskey. Makes it  less potent. But we use it with things  

that have nothing to do with liquids as  well. This phrasal verb means to reduce  

the force or effectiveness of something, to  make something less strong or meaningful.

And so you’ve got a really difficult situation  

here where if you’re going to get  any more Republicans on board,  

you might need to water down a bill that  Democrats already believe isn’t strong enough.

You might need to water down.

All items that we put out, I mean we did this  conjunction with illustrative math, one of our  

authors of the common core, we have a lot of the  top math experts in the world looking at it, it’s  

a rigorous level, we don’t water down the content.  The easiest wat to the students even more engaged.

We don’t water down the content.

They will not be able to drop your  coverage if you get sick. They will  

not. They will not be able to water  down your coverage when you need it.

They will not be able to water down your coverage

The more I wrote, the more I engage in civic duty,  

the more I held conversations with critically  minded people that challenge the status quo,  

the more I understood the way we  water down and sugarcoat our history.

the way we water down and sugarcoat our history.

I love that last example, water down and sugarcoat  our history. Water down. You know this means  

to make less strong or meaningful. We take the  force out of what we can learn from our history.

Sugarcoat means to try to make something  that is undesirable seem better. The  

business is almost bankrupt and  there’s no way to sugarcoat it.

Next, ‘tag along’. This means to go  somewhere with a person or a group  

of people. Hey Rachel, we’re going out  for ice cream, do you want to tag along?

It can also mean something that  sometimes goes with something  

else like in the phrase ‘Why does the  anxiety seem to tag along with depression?

In Zimbabwe, in Senegal, in Nigeria,  Zaire and other countries we visited,  

Barbara was talking to adult literacy groups.  And frequently, I would tag along with her.

How come so often we hear depression  and anxiety. Why does anxiety seem  

to tag along with depression? Because it  sounds like the opposite of depression.

Seem to tag along with depression

Then the focus of treatment is on  the other disorder because you can  

kind of think of depersonalization  and derealization in this context  

is like tag along symptoms of these disorders.

tag along symptoms of these disorders.

Even when some of us wish we could chip in.

There’s some tag along like me who aren’t  really in the family but we show up.

There’s some tag along like me.

Aunts and uncles, and kids and kids’ friends,

Garner State Park!

The Fuentes were nice enough to let me tag along  

with them and follow them  with a camera for 5 days.

to let me tag along with them.

This week, we tag along with nature  photographer Mark Harlow as he gives  

us an in-depth look behind some  of his more famous photographs.

This week, we tag along with  nature photographer Mark Harlow--

I’m going for quick walk.  Do you want to tag along?

Suck it up. This means to accept an unpleasant  fact or situation. For example, ‘I know you  

don’t like working overtime but you need to suck  it up because the family needs the extra money.

And we need more athletes to understand how  important it is to do what we can prevent injuries  

and to admit them when they do happen. So right we have to change a culture that says you suck it up.

we have to change a culture  that says you suck it up.

I’m hitting the snooze button, I’m  not showing up on time because I  

don’t want to be around them. I got  to suck it up and I got to be there.

I got to suck it up and I got to be there.

Every group of female friends has the funny  one, the one you go to when you need a good cry,  

the one who tells you to suck it  up when you’ve had a hard day.

The one who tells you to suck it up.

Did the school do anything about it?

Not really, no, you know this was  in the 50s and early 60s and now--

You’re supposed to suck it up.

You suck it up, you’re on your own uh, kid.

You’re supposed to suck it up.

You suck it up, you’re on your own.

I could either sit and cry every single day or I  

could suck it up and just  work really, really hard.

or I could suck it up.

Next, weight in. This has nothing to do with  weighing something like on a scale. It means  

to give an opinion or your ideas in  a discussion or argument. Let’s say  

you’re discussing something at a meeting  and your coworker isn’t participating,  

but you want to know what he thinks. You could  say: Hey Rachel, do you want to weigh it?

So we actually have a little bit less than five  minutes left, a lot of good input from everyone,  

so I’ll just ask one question that  everybody can weigh it on. That is uhm,

That everybody can weigh in on.

And I remember I was watching television with my  husband at night, and I was staring at my phone,  

just being like, Did more people  weigh in like what’s happening?

Did more people weigh in? Like what’s happening?

You maybe speaking to the legislature. Take a  look at this, Perhaps you ought to weigh in.

Perhaps you ought to weigh in.

I don’t know. But actually, what  we know about skull morphology is  

that it’s highly variable and there is uh,  many environmental factors that weigh in.

So, what we actually think is happening

and there is uh, many environmental  factors that weigh in.

So I’d like to and to that point,  I’d like you all to weigh in on this.

I’d like you all to weigh in on this.

Drone on. You know what a drone is, right? A  small device that flies that you can control  

remotely. Unrelated to drone on. This means  to talk for a long time about one topic,  

really too long, often it implies that what  you’re saying isn’t very interesting. I wanted  

to make a video on a hundred phrasal verbs, but  I didn’t want to drone on so I cut it to nine.

Thank you very much for th e opportunity  to let me drone on here a bit so--

Thank you very much for the opportunity  to let me drone on here a bit.

Make sure you still hook them right  from the beginning, so in other words,  

you almost want to write kind of a short  form copy ad at the beginning anyways,  

and build on it as you proceed. This is not the  place to drone on and on and really bore them  

and never hook their attention and you ads  not going to work no matter how long it is.

This is not the place to drone  on and on and really bore them.

Now, if the speaker seems to drone on and on,  

and on, and on and on, it’s time  for a visualization technique.

“Now, if the speaker seems  to drone on and on, and on”

And education isn’t just about kids.  I mean many you right now in the room  

have jobs and like many children, you’re  asked to sit all day and watch or listen  

to somebody drone on right? Stare  at the computer screen all day but

and watch or listen to somebody drone on right?

Boil down to. This phrasal verb means to  find the most essential or basic point  

of something. For example: There  are lots of things I think about  

when planning a vacation but really,  what it all boils down to is money.

My man Josh Pais says this in a  slightly different way. He says,  

“If you listen to you thoughts in your mind,  they all boil down to the same thing: I suck.

all boil down to the same thing: I suck.

Arrived at the consensus that happiness  as complicated and multicultural as it is,  

can really boil down to a few things, one,

boil down to a few things,

We do not get an answer that we should get if the  

laws of Statistics as they boil down to  this question being a yes no question.

The laws of Statistics as they boil down  to this question being a yes no question.

Basically, many of the tips and  tricks over how to save money  

in the long term boil down to having  more money to spend in the short term.

boil down to having more money  to spend in the short term.

Just to get back to your question,  the brain drain uh, question, yeah,  

I think it really boils down to a lot of people,  

it doesn’t really matter where they’re going  to live as long as they can afford a house.

yeah, I think it really boils down to--

The last one is my favorite one. The  word ‘Glom’. It’s not too common but  

I just like saying it. Glom onto. It means  officially to take something for your own  

use but I find we use it more to mean to  attach to something. Like, I can’t come  

up with a good idea for this assignment. Can  I glom on to you and we’ll do it together?

So then you’ll introduce millions of tiny  particles so that water droplets can glom  

onto them and grow and grow until they’re  heavy enough to fall as rain or snow.

water droplets can glom  onto them and grow and grow.

So, in a sentence like Kimmy bribed the therapist  with a drink, that prepositional phrase,  

with a drink can either glom onto the  therapist or reach up into the verb phrase

with a drink can either glom onto the therapist.

Yeah, you guys are going.

No. Go get the car and leave.

No, we’re coming with.

Don’t glom onto this.

Hi, you guys.

Don’t glom onto this.

Alright, here’s something. What  if we do the show together?

What? Oh, I’m not going to let  you glom onto my new hit show.

43 views.

Oh, I’m not going to let you  glom onto my new hit show.

Jerry’s lonely, Farah’s lonely, they  both glom onto us. We set them up,  

they’ll both flom onto each other  and then she can bang his drum.

They both glom onto us.

Nine phrasal verbs and here’s a challenge.  Take one of them and write a sentence in  

the comments using it. Keep your learning  now with this video and don’t forget to  

subscribe with notifications on so you  never miss a video. I love being your  

English teacher. That’s it and thanks  so much for using Rachel’s English.