Can You Put a Noun in the Middle of a Phrasal Verb?

A reader once told me she hated hearing structures like "She ran him over." Shouldn't it be, she wondered, "She ran over him"?

No. Phrasal verbs, which are verbs like "run over," "give up," and "take down," derive their meaning from more than one word. But that doesn't mean you can't put an object in the middle. Here's the full story.

 

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