Professional English Practice · Phrasal Verbs
11 · ON: contact, continuation, and undertaking
Keeping hold, keeping moving, and taking the work on.
ACCESS
Read the scene and notice the moves in bold. One of them, soldier on, is never taught in this book. Before you read on, let the particle show you what it means.
A logistics operation at peak season, the morning standup on the busiest week of the year.
Mara We're at record volume. Can the night shift carry on at this pace through Friday?
Sol They can, but the packing line is the bottleneck. We should work on that first.
Mara Agreed. Let's not take on the returns backlog until the outbound settles.
Sol The new hires latched on fast. They're already quicker than last peak.
Mara Good. If the system lags again, hold on and reroute manually. Don't stop the line.
Sol Understood. The crew will soldier on. Let's move on to the staffing plan for Saturday.
ANALYSIS
ONE QUESTION RUNS THIS WHOLE UNIT
Is the contact made, kept, or taken up?
On is one picture: in contact with a surface. What separates the three senses is time: contact made at a moment, contact held while something continues, or contact taken onto yourself as a job.
The structure
On is the mirror of off, and its hub is just as physical: in contact with a surface. Put a cup on the table, a hand on a rail, a coat on your back. Every abstract sense in this unit is that contact held over time, or taken up as a task.
In the contact sense, something makes or keeps its grip: you put on a role, latch on to an idea, hold on to a line. In the continuation sense, the contact keeps moving along a surface: carry on, move on, press on. In the undertaking sense, you take a task onto yourself and stay on it: take on, work on, get on with.
Contact
- Sense
- something makes or keeps its grip
- How you know
- there is a moment of attachment
- Use it to
- report a thing being adopted, seized, or held
Continuation
- Sense
- the contact keeps moving along the surface
- How you know
- the action was already happening before this sentence
- Use it to
- say a thing continued when it might have stopped
Undertaking
- Sense
- a task is taken onto yourself and stayed with
- How you know
- there is a person, and a load that is now theirs
- Use it to
- report an undertaking, not just an activity
The literal sense sits at the top. Everything under it is that same movement applied to something you cannot touch.
On the surface, off the surface
Unit 9 took things away from a surface. This one puts them there and keeps them there, and the two units are best read as one pair.
Take on a task and it rests on you. Put off a task and it comes away from its date. Carry on and the contact keeps sliding forward; break off and it stops and separates.
The word that gives the unit away is still. Continuation almost always tolerates it, they are still carrying on, still holding on, still pressing on, because the contact is being maintained against something.
The test you can run with no book
Ask: when does the contact happen?
At one moment and the sense is contact. Over a stretch and it is continuation. Onto a person, as a load they now carry, and it is undertaking.
Try inserting still. If still fits without changing the meaning, you are in the continuation sense. If it does not, you are in one of the other two.
The mechanical half: undertaking needs somebody to carry it. A task is taken on by a person or a team, never by a date or a process. If there is no one holding the load, the sense is contact.
One idea covers them all: on means still in contact, and the only question is what the contact is doing. It grabs and grips, it keeps rolling forward, or it takes up a task and stays on it. This is why carry on and take on feel so different though they share a particle: one keeps an action rolling, the other loads a new task onto your plate.
ACTIVATION
Work down the page: the form first, then the strangers, then the particle choices, then the words, then say one out loud.
Complete the form
Use the verb in brackets plus on, in the correct form.
Spot and fix the error
Each sentence has one mistake. Rewrite it correctly.
1. Please carry on at this pace; we can't slow down now.
2. Hold on a second while I check the manifest.
3. We worked on the fix all afternoon.
4. Let's move on to the staffing plan now.
5. The new hires latched on to the system well.
Rewrite with a phrasal verb
Replace the formal verb with a verb plus on that carries the same meaning.
1. Can the night shift carry on at this pace?
2. Let's not take on the returns backlog yet.
3. We should work on the packing bottleneck first.
4. Please hold on while I check the manifest.
5. Let's move on to the staffing plan.
Match the halves
Join each opening to the ending that completes it.
Meet a Stranger
These three are not taught anywhere in this book. Reason from the particle, then reveal the key.
1. “Management seized on the one metric that finally improved.”
2. “Despite the outage, the night shift plowed on until the trucks were loaded.”
3. “Next quarter the team embarks on a full redesign of the pick routes.”
seize on: to grab an idea or a detail and make the most of it. Contact sense.
plow on: to keep going with effort despite obstacles. Continuation sense.
embark on: to begin a substantial undertaking. Undertaking sense.
Particle swap
Same verb, three particles, one right answer. Choose the particle the situation needs.
Vocabulary: momentum and effort
Match each expression to its meaning.
Vocabulary in context
Complete each sentence with an expression from G.