In my circles of friends and acquaintances, I have yet to meet anyone who learned about phrasal verbs before they got into college—and sometimes not even then, because they didn’t take the right courses.

“Settle down” is one such verb. “Down” is an adverb. We know that. But is it really working like an adverb when it’s connected in this way to “settle?” That’s the kind of question that (in my day, anyway) made the English teacher’s head explode and resulted in nothing approaching an answer. Continue reading “Settle down. Time for phrasal verbs” →