Things that go wrong at work
Think of something that went wrong at work — or in a course, or in any organisation you have belonged to. Not a disaster. Something ordinary that took longer than it should have.
Hold it. First, eight expressions about organisations.
Eight expressions. Match each to what it actually describes.
The same account, twice
Version one
The project was postponed in March because the budget had not been approved. I attempted to ascertain the reason and eventually discovered that the request had not been submitted. I raised the matter with my manager, who informed me that she would investigate it and respond in due course.
She did not respond. I therefore resubmitted the request myself, and it was subsequently approved within a week. The delay had consumed four months.
Version two
The project got put off in March because the budget hadn’t been signed off. I tried to find out why and it turned out the request had never gone in. I brought it up with my manager, who said she’d look into it and get back to me.
She didn’t get back to me. So I put it in again myself, and it went through in a week. The whole thing had dragged on for four months.
Five questions. The two versions describe the same events in the same order.
1. Which version would a colleague actually say out loud?
2. Version one is grammatically correct throughout. What is wrong with it?
3. Which words in version one would a Portuguese speaker reach for most easily?
4. What does that mean for a Brazilian learner?
5. In spoken professional English, which is the unmarked choice?
Two words, and why they are the normal ones
The substitution, and what it costs
| Spoken English | The Latinate version | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| put off | postpone | Nothing in meaning; the register rises to written |
| find out | ascertain | The Latinate one is now almost only legal or bureaucratic |
| look into | investigate | Investigate implies more formality and more suspicion |
| get back to | respond | Get back to promises a person; respond promises a message |
| go through | be approved | The phrasal one is what people say about processes they are inside |
| drag on | continue at length | The phrasal one carries the complaint; the other does not |
This is not a rule about informality. Phrasal verbs are not slang and they are not casual. They are the ordinary verbs of English, and a great many of them have no single-word equivalent at all — get on with, put up with, come up against, run by, get round to.
What the substitution actually does is make you sound as though you are reading a prepared statement in a conversation. That is a real cost and it is invisible to the speaker, because every individual sentence is correct.
Six sentences of the account, out of order. Put them back into the order the events happened.
- She never got back to me, and after three weeks I stopped waiting.
- The project got put off in March because the budget hadn’t been signed off.
- By then the whole thing had dragged on for four months.
- I brought it up with my manager, who said she’d look into it.
- I put the request in again myself, and it went through in a week.
- I tried to find out why, and it turned out the request had never gone in.
Putting the short words back
Seven gaps. Choose the version a colleague would actually say.
The launch got until September because the figures hadn’t been . I tried to who was waiting on what, and it that nobody was. I with the team lead, who said she’d it. Three weeks later nothing had happened, so I the whole thing myself in an afternoon.
Seven sentences. Five are register — correct English, wrong for speech. Two are grammar.
1. I will investigate the matter and revert to you. — said to a colleague
2. The meeting was postponed until Thursday. — said in the corridor
3. I cannot tolerate the noise from the building work. — said to a friend at work
4. I put off it until next week.
5. She said she would ascertain the position and communicate it.
6. I looked it into and found nothing.
7. The project was terminated in March. — it simply stopped moving
Something that took too long
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each, twice
Tell your partner about the thing you thought of at the start — what went wrong, and how long it took.
Three minutes. Then your partner gives you a list, and you do it again.
- Round one: say it however comes out. Do not think about vocabulary.
- Listener: write down every Latinate verb you hear — postpone, approve, investigate, respond, resolve, communicate, submit.
- Round two: same story, and every verb on that list has to be replaced by the version people say.
- Listener: mark any that came back anyway.
What the list means. It is not a list of mistakes. Every word on it is correct English used correctly. It is a list of the places where a cognate arrived first and stopped you reaching for the ordinary verb — which is why the list is long and why nobody has ever mentioned it to you.
What came back anyway
Five sentences of the kind round two produces. Replace the Latinate verb.
1. I decided to postpone the conversation until Monday.
2. Nobody had submitted the form.
3. I discovered that the file had been deleted.
4. We must reduce the number of meetings.
5. She refused to accept the explanation.
The escape route
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. Why do Portuguese speakers avoid phrasal verbs without noticing?
2. In spoken professional English, which is the marked choice?
3. What does avoiding them make you sound like?
Next. Four workplace conversations, and what people actually say when they are not writing.