Professional English Practice · Phrasal Verbs
32 · Phrasal verbs turned into nouns
Reports and summaries: turnout, fallout, buy-in, and the stress that gives them away.
ACCESS
Every phrasal verb you've learned can freeze into a noun, and those nouns run through every report and executive summary. There's a catch you can hear: the stress moves to the front. Listen for it as you read.
Two people drafting an executive summary for the board, compressing a whole quarter into a page.
Sol For the board summary: the rollout hit its numbers, but the fallout from the price change is real.
Mara Right. Lead with the turnout at the launch, then the breakdown by region.
Sol And we still don't have full buy-in from the sales team.
Mara Note it. Also flag the handover to the client's team next month.
Sol One more: engineering shipped a workaround, not a real fix. The board should know.
Mara Good. Every one of those is a phrasal verb wearing a noun's clothes. Say them out loud, the stress jumps to the front.
ANALYSIS
ONE QUESTION RUNS THIS WHOLE UNIT
Verb or noun: where is the stress?
Almost any phrasal verb can freeze into a noun: break down becomes a breakdown, roll out becomes a rollout. Two things change when it does, and both are mechanical: the stress moves to the front, and the spelling closes up.
The structure
This is the last move in the book, and the most quietly useful. Almost any phrasal verb can freeze into a noun. Break down becomes a breakdown; roll out becomes a rollout; hand over becomes a handover.
Two things change when the verb becomes a noun. First, the stress moves to the front. As a verb, the stress is on the particle: the system broke DOWN. As a noun, it jumps to the verb: a BREAKdown of costs. Second, the spelling tightens: most close up into one word, a few take a hyphen, and the meaning narrows to one specific sense.
As a verb
- Form
- verb + particle, two words, stress on the particle
- Meaning
- it is doing something in the sentence
- Use it to
- describe an act as it happens
As a noun
- Form
- one word, stress on the front
- Meaning
- it is a thing in the sentence, with an article in front of it
- Use it to
- name the act as an object you can point at
The spelling
- Form
- most close up, a few take a hyphen
- Meaning
- the written form follows the spoken one
- Use it to
- write it the way the reader expects to see it
The capitals mark the stress. As a verb it sits on the particle; as a noun it jumps to the front.
The meaning narrows on the way
The stress and the spelling are the visible changes. The third change is the one worth watching, because nothing on the page announces it.
The verb break down covers a wide range: a machine stops, a person loses composure, a negotiation collapses. The noun a breakdown most often means one specific thing: an itemized list. The verb kept its range; the noun took one sense and kept it.
The same narrowing runs through the set. A handover is a specific event with a document; hand over is any transfer. When a phrasal verb freezes, it usually freezes around one meaning.
The test you can run with no book
Ask: is there an article in front of it?
A, the, this, or a possessive in front means you are looking at the noun, which means one word and the stress on the front. No article and it is the verb: two words, stress on the particle.
Say both out loud and the difference is unmistakable: broke DOWN against a BREAKdown. The stress is not decoration; it is how a listener knows which one you meant.
The mechanical half: a noun takes a plural, a verb takes a tense. Two rollouts, three handovers. If you can add an s for number, write it as one word.
The phrasal-verb noun is compression. “We need agreement and active commitment from the sales team” becomes “we need sales buy-in.” A learner who says a break-DOWN of costs with the verb's stress marks themselves as non-native in one word; the one who says a BREAKdown sounds like they've written a hundred reports.
ACTIVATION
Practice the noun: form it, spell it, compress a clause into it, then say it with front stress.
Make the noun
Rewrite each with the phrasal-verb noun that names it.
Spell the noun
Each noun is misspelled as two words or wrongly hyphenated. Write the correct noun form.
1. We need sales buy-in before launch.
2. The rollout is scheduled for March.
3. Give me a breakdown of the costs.
4. The handover happens next month.
5. There was a large turnout at the event.
Compress it into a noun
Rewrite each sentence so a phrasal-verb noun replaces the whole underlined clause.
1. The report gives a breakdown of costs.
2. Company buy-in is still weak.
3. The fallout hit the brand hard.
4. We did a phased rollout.
5. The handover to the new vendor was smooth.
Match the halves
Join each noun to its one precise meaning.
Meet a Stranger
These three nouns come from phrasal verbs. If you don't know them, reason from the particle, then reveal the key.
1. “There's been an uptick in support tickets this week.”
2. “The market shakeout left only three serious players.”
3. “The hardware team became a spinoff last year.”
an uptick: a small increase. Up: a tick upward.
a shakeout: a period that clears out the weakest players. Out: shaken loose and removed.
a spinoff: a venture split off from a parent company. Off: separated away.
Spell the noun
Choose the correct noun form for a written report. The others are the verb, or wrong.
Vocabulary: more phrasal-verb nouns
Match each report noun to its meaning.
Vocabulary in context
Complete each sentence with a noun from G.