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Do British people use phrasal verbs more often than Americans?

K-Mansfield
I've noticed that when I read novels by British authors, I come across more phrasal verbs than in American ones.

14 comments

Outside_Service3339•
I didn't know what those were until you mentioned the weird and I looked it up lol, honestly I pay zero attention to these kinds of things so I don't know
kgxv•
Phrasal verbs are *extremely* common in the US, both verbally and in writing. Not sure from where you’d get the mistaken impression otherwise.
cardinarium•
Some individual phrasal verbs are more common in certain dialects than in others, but I can’t find any evidence that the overall frequency is different across dialects.
brokebackzac•
We use them all the time in the states, but you're right I think they may not be used in writing as much.
letmeluciddream•
I think you’re focusing on the longer phrasal verbs that stand out more but in reality, there are a ton of small ones Americans and British alike use constantly ex. pick up, put down, cut off, go up, get over, just to name a few of the bazillion we all use also a vast majority of people, at least in America, do not know what phrasal verbs are and definitely do not have any idea how much they use them lol
DrSomniferum•
I don't think so. Americans use a ton of phrasal verbs, too. There are slight variations in the phrasal verbs or meanings, but the overall frequency of use is not noticeably different between the two as far as I can tell.
Fit-Share-284•
I've never paid attention but I feel like this might be true, in writing at least. It's also because I'm pretty sure British English uses certain phrasal verbs that American English doesn't use, at least from my experience (e.g. chivvy along).
K-Mansfield••OP
I think I just thought this because there are specific phrasal verbs that I've seen more frequently in British books, like 'set off' or 'sorted out,' and others I wasn't as familiar with.
nadsatpenfriend•
It should be about equal I would think. Perhaps some stylistic variations exist as well. In BritEng you might hear things like "pissed off"(=annoyed, unhappy, disappointed), even "cheesed off" (fed up,unhappy) and some rather quaint turns of phrase like "tooled up" (to be carrying a weapon) or "grass someone up" (report a person to the police). Sure there's specific phrasal verbs used more un American English.
MossyPiano•
I'm Irish with an American mother, and I've never noticed any transatlantic difference in the use of phrasal verbs.
JenniferJuniper6•
No.
wrkr13•
I think the real gap is between English and all you other languages that have "cases." Once you start declining nouns, you stop needing prepositions to direct the verbs. I have nothing to back this up. I'd be curious if any linguists have insights into this.
StrongTxWoman•
I regularly read British books and I don't think it is true. Some words are more common in the UK but it is regional
mtnbcn•
I haven't come across anyone going on about having picked up on anything like that. Or as we'd say in the US, I haven't encountered anyone discussing that they noticed anything like that. Just messing with you. I mean uh, teasing. ;) In all seriousness, I haven't heard of this and I just tried looking it up (er.. researching) this and my search came up empty. ETA: I mean, my search resulted in nothing. :) Ok I'll stop. (But British and American English \*do\* use \*different\* phrasal verbs sometimes).