1
Hi, this is Melissa Faulkner coming to you from Durham, North Carolina.
Today we’re going to talk about three phrasal verbs: ‘turn up’, ‘turn
around’ and ‘blow up’. Now, the first two phrasal verbs have the word
‘turn’ in them and both of these phrasal verbs, the word ‘turn’ actually
means something a little bit different in both of the phrasal verbs ‘turn
up’ and ‘turn around’. So we’ll talk about the different uses of the word
‘turn’ in both of those phrasal verbs. Now for each phrasal verb I’ll give
you three sentences and then we’ll give an explanation about how to use
the phrasal verb in each of those sentences. So let’s take a look at what
our first phrasal verb ‘turn up’.
Now, ‘turn up’ oftentimes means for something to be found, especially
after it’s been lost. So if something ‘turns up’ that means you have found
it after it’s been lost. So let’s take a look at the example. Sentence
number one:
After a week of not being able to find my book, I knew it had to turn
up sometime.
So in this case, they’ve lost their book, maybe they’ve misplaced it in a
book bag or they’ve left it at home or at school or somewhere. The book
has been lost and so they know that after a certain amount of time, the
books probably going to turn up. They’re probably going to find it hidden
underneath another book or hidden in a bag or something like that. The
book is going to turn up or it’s going to be found. Sentence number two:
When we went to the beach, Sarah couldn’t find her towel but she
knew it would turn up once they packed up.
So again, in this case, it means to be found, especially after being lost. So
you can tell that Sarah can’t find her towel when they go to the beach.
MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE
2
She knows that once they start packing things up, they start moving
things around, that the towel will probably turn up. It will probably be
found since it’s been lost before. Let’s take a look at sentence number
three:
Sammy only invited fifty people to the store opening so he was
surprised when over one hundred people turned up.
Now this is a little bit different meaning of the phrasal verb ‘turn up’. It
means to make an appearance or to arrive. So in this case, he only invited
fifty people but a hundred people turned up. A hundred people came or
made an appearance at his store opening. He wasn’t expecting that, he
only invited fifty but a hundred people turned up. A hundred people
came.
Let’s move on to our next phrasal verb ‘turn around’. Now ‘turn around’
oftentimes means a motion, you’re turning your body either left or right
but you’re turning all the way around so that you’re facing the opposite
direction. You’re facing the behind of you where you were normally
facing this way. So let’s take a look at the sentences. Sentence number
one:
When Janelle heard someone call her name behind her, she turned
around to see who it was.
So in this situation, Janelle is facing one way. Somebody behind her yells
and she turns around to see who it was. She turns her body all the way
around. Let’s take a look at sentence number two:
After Ryan caught the ball in the outfield, he quickly turned around
to throw it back to the first baseman.
So in this sentence, you can tell Ryan is playing baseball. He’s in the
outfield when the ball gets hit, it probably gets hit over his head. He
goes, catches the ball and has to turn around to be able to throw the ball
MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE
3
back to the infield. So he’s turning his whole body around. Sentence
number three:
John’s boss wanted him to get the project turned around in under a
week so he knew it would be stressful.
This is a little bit different version of the phrase ‘turn around’. In this
case, ‘turn around’ means to get something done or to finish a project or
a task. You might have someone say ‘How quickly can you get that turned
around?’ How quickly can you finish that task. So let’s look at the
sentence again:
John’s boss wanted him to get the project turned around in under a
week, so he knew it would be stressful.
So in this situation, John has a project. He needs to get the project
finished. His boss wants him to turn it around in a week. His boss wants
him to finish the project in a week so that implies a deadline or a due
date. You’re finishing something. Let’s move on to phrasal verb number
three; ‘blow up’. There are a couple of different versions of this phrasal
verb so we’ll talk about all three of them in each of the sentences.
Sentence number one:
When the SWAT team heard the ticking noise get faster, they knew
something was about to blow up.
So the definition of ‘blow up’ in this sentence means to explode,
especially in a dangerous way. And so in this situation, the SWAT team,
which is a team that normally deals, they’re specially trained, they
normally deal with emergency situations. They heard some…the ticking
getting faster, which you can imagine, was a bomb. When the ticking got
faster, they imagined that it was about to blow up. It was about to
explode in a dangerous way. That’s the first way and oftentimes the most
common way that you hear the phrase ‘blow up’. Sentence number two:
MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE
4
After Sherry heard the news about her boyfriend cheating on her,
she blew up and furiously yelled at him.
So in this situation, ‘blow up’ means to react in a strong way; in an
emotionally charged way. So you can imagine their emotions are almost
blowing up. So in this case, Sherry heard some bad news about her
boyfriend. She got very angry and she blew up. She started yelling at him.
So in that case it’s more of a figurative blowing up; your emotions are
blowing up. Let’s go on to sentence number three:
After Caitlin posted the video on YouTube, her brother’s band video
blew up overnight with over two million views.
So in this case, ‘blow up’ means to become well known through social
media or other avenues. But it means that your video, kind of figuratively
also blew up. A lot of people are listening to it, a lot of people have seen
it. It’s kind of – we would also call this ‘going viral’ if something gets a lot
of views, or a lot of people see it, you would say that it had blown up. So
in this case, Caitlin posted the video on YouTube and overnight it blew
up. It had almost two million views.
So in this – today we talked about three different phrasal verbs – ‘turn
up’, ‘turn around’ and ‘blow up’. I hope these explanations were helpful
for you and we’ll look forward to talking to you in the future. Thanks.
MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE