Professional English Practice · Phrasal Verbs
24 · TAKE across the particles
Ownership and responsibility: hold the verb still and let the particle move.
ACCESS
This is a prediction clinic. The verb take never changes; only the particle moves, and the particle carries the meaning. One phrase, take on board, is never taught here. Predict it from the particle before you read on.
A newly promoted lead and their manager, mapping out the first week of owning a team.
Priya Congratulations. You take over the team officially Monday.
Sam Thanks. I'd like to take on the migration project as my first big push.
Priya Good. Just don't take on too much at once. Take up one priority and land it.
Sam Fair. I'll take in the team's context first, before I change anything.
Priya Smart. And when they give feedback, take it on board, even the hard parts.
Sam I will. If I get something wrong, I'll take it back and fix it. No ego.
ANALYSIS
ONE QUESTION RUNS THIS WHOLE UNIT
Which direction is take pointing?
The verb is holding still on purpose. Take on its own means little more than to get hold of something, so every sharper meaning in this unit is the particle's doing. Name the direction and you have named the phrase.
The structure
In every unit so far, the particle moved and the verb changed with it. This clinic flips the axis. The verb take stays perfectly still, so whatever shifts, from accepting a job to leaving the ground, is coming from the particle alone.
Take is a good verb to prove it on, because it means almost nothing by itself. To take is just to get hold of something. Add a particle and a direction appears.
Over: across
- Sense
- control crosses from somebody else to you
- How you know
- there was a previous holder
- Use it to
- report a handover you are on the receiving end of
On: onto a surface
- Sense
- a load comes to rest on you
- How you know
- afterward you are carrying it
- Use it to
- report accepting work, or accepting a person into a team
Up: off the ground
- Sense
- something is lifted from rest and begun
- How you know
- it was not happening before
- Use it to
- report starting a practice, not finishing one
In: inside a boundary
- Sense
- something crosses inward and is absorbed
- How you know
- the thing taken in does not move again
- Use it to
- report understanding, or capacity
Read down the particle column. You already know each one. Predict the meaning before your eye reaches the third column.
The axis has flipped
Every unit before this one held a particle still and let the verbs change. This one does the opposite, and the reason is a proof.
If take over, take on, take up and take in mean four different things, and the verb was identical in all four, then the meaning cannot have come from the verb. There is nowhere else for it to have come from.
And the particles are behaving exactly as they did in their own units. Over is still across, on is still onto a surface, up is still off the ground, in is still inside a boundary. Nothing new has to be learned here: only recognized.
The test you can run with no book
Ask: what would the particle mean if you were moving a physical object?
Take it over: carry it across to somebody. Take it on: put it on your back. Take it up: lift it. Take it in: bring it inside. In every case the abstract sense is that same movement, done to something you cannot hold.
That is the whole method of this book, and this unit is where you can check it under controlled conditions, because only one thing is allowed to vary.
The mechanical half: take on takes a load, take over takes a thing somebody else had. If nobody held it before you, over is wrong.
Hold the verb still and the lesson is impossible to miss: take barely means anything until a particle gives it a direction. On loads a responsibility onto you; over slides control across from someone else; in pulls something inward; out pushes it away. The verb is the hand; the particle is where the hand moves.
ACTIVATION
Work down the page: predict the particle first, then the strangers, then the particle choices, then the words, then say one out loud.
Complete the particle
Complete each with the right particle after take: on, over, up, in, out, back, or off. The meaning is in brackets.
Spot and fix the error
Each sentence has the wrong particle. Rewrite it with the right one.
1. You take over the team Monday, replacing the current lead.
2. Don't take on too much in your first week.
3. I'll take in the team's context before deciding.
4. If I'm wrong, I'll take back the claim.
5. Let's take up this issue at Monday's standup.
Rewrite with take plus a particle
Replace the formal verb with take plus the particle that carries the same meaning.
1. You take over the team Monday.
2. I'd like to take on the migration project.
3. I'll take in the team's context first.
4. I'll take back the claim if I'm wrong.
5. Let's take up this issue at the next meeting.
Match the halves
Join each take phrase to the ending that fits its particle.
Meet a Stranger
These three take phrases are not taught anywhere in this book. Predict each from its particle, then reveal the key.
1. “Everyone says the new hire takes after her mentor in negotiation style.”
2. “The reviewers took the proposal apart, section by section.”
3. “The lead took the new hire aside for a quiet word.”
take after: to resemble a family member or predecessor in character. After: following in someone's pattern.
take apart: to dismantle, or to criticize in detail. Apart: into separate pieces.
take aside: to draw someone away for a private word. Aside: to the side.
Particle swap
Same verb, three particles, one right answer. Choose the particle the situation needs.
Vocabulary: take as a noun
These are phrasal verbs frozen into nouns. Match each to its meaning.
Vocabulary in context
Complete each sentence with a noun from G.