Professional English Practice · Phrasal Verbs
5 · UP: completion and finality
Closing out a project.
ACCESS
Read the scene and notice the moves in bold. One of them, square up, is never taught in this book. Before you read on, let the particle show you what it means.
A clinical research team, three days from closing a study site.
Ruth We need to wrap up the site by Friday. Where does everything stand?
Dev Data entry is nearly there. About forty queries left to clear up.
Amara I'll tie up the consent files. Two of them are missing a signature.
Ruth Good. And we've used up almost the whole monitoring budget, so no extra visits.
Dev The lab still hasn't invoiced us for the final batch.
Amara I'll square up with them Monday, once the last shipment lands.
Ruth Then let's finish up and send the closeout letter.
ANALYSIS
ONE QUESTION RUNS THIS WHOLE UNIT
What limit does this reach?
A task, a supply, or a debt. Up carries a thing to its end point, and which end point it is tells you which of the three senses you are looking at. Ask this before you choose the particle, every time.
The structure
Up begins where every child learns it: physical motion toward the top. Hands up. Stand up. But English does something patterned with that image, and once you see the step, much of the particle stops looking arbitrary.
If you move up, you eventually arrive at a top, and a top is a limit. Reach the limit of a task and the task is finished. Reach the limit of a supply and the supply is gone. Reach the limit of what you owe and the account is closed. Height, then limit, then finish: one short chain, and it explains why three senses that feel unrelated all take one particle.
The limit of a task
- Sense
- the work arrives at its end and stops
- How you know
- there is a finishing point the action reaches, not just activity
- Use it to
- say a job is done, rather than under way
The limit of a supply
- Sense
- a quantity is drawn on until none is left
- How you know
- there is a countable stock behind the verb: money, time, patience
- Use it to
- report that something has run out, not merely been used
The limit of a debt
- Sense
- what is owed is brought to zero
- How you know
- two parties, and an account between them
- Use it to
- close a matter with somebody, not just pay them
The literal sense sits at the top. Everything under it is that same movement applied to something you cannot touch.
The same verb, three particles
This is where the particle earns its keep, and where a learner who has only memorized whole expressions has nothing to go on. Take one ordinary verb and change nothing but the particle:
Clear up the last two queries. The queries reach their end: they are resolved and gone. Clear out the storeroom. The contents leave an enclosed space. Clear off the desk. Things come away from a surface.
Three different results, and the verb clear contributed the same thing to all three. The particle did the rest, and it is doing exactly what it does in the physical world: up to a limit, out of a container, off a surface. Nothing here has to be learned as an idiom.
The test you can run with no book
Ask: is there an end point this arrives at?
If there is, and the sentence is about getting there, the particle is up. If the movement is out of something, it is out; away from a surface, off. That one question separates the three particles that cause most of the trouble, and you can run it on an expression you have never met.
Then name the limit, because that is what tells the three senses of up apart: a task, a supply, or a debt. Wrap up is a task. Use up is a supply. Square up is a debt.
The mechanical half: if nothing runs out, up is wrong. A verb that already finishes does not take it: finalize up the contract is not English, because finalize has already reached the limit and the particle has nothing left to add.
Your working memory holds about four things at once. Store “up means reaching the limit,” and wrap up, use up, and settle up stop being three items. They are one idea applied to three limits: a task, a supply, a debt.
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 up, in the correct form and word order.
Spot and fix the error
Each sentence has one mistake. Rewrite it correctly.
1. I'll use it up before the end of the month.
2. Please finalize the contract by Friday.
3. Can you clear them up before the call?
4. We have used up all the buffer already.
5. Let's wrap up the meeting once everyone has spoken.
Rewrite with a phrasal verb
Replace the formal verb with a verb plus up that carries the same meaning.
1. The sponsor finally paid up after two reminders.
2. The team used up the entire travel budget by March.
3. Referrals from the regional clinic dried up in March.
4. Please square up with the supplier. (settle up with also works)
5. Can you finish up the last few tasks before you leave?
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. “Finance asked us to true up the forecast against actual spend before quarter end.”
2. “Let's wind up here. We're already five minutes over.”
3. “Legal thinks we can sew up the contract by Thursday.”
true up: to adjust figures so they match reality. Completion sense.
wind up: to bring a meeting or an event to its end. Completion sense, close to wrap up.
sew up: to finalize and secure something so it cannot come undone. Completion sense.
Particle swap
Same verb, three particles, one right answer. Choose the particle the situation needs.
Vocabulary: finishing expressions
Match each expression to its meaning.
Vocabulary in context
Complete each sentence with an expression from G.