Using phrasal verbs? Cut it out

- In the 1980s, a Ukrainian-born comedian spoke about how English makes no sense. He said, "In English, you have a tree, right? First, you chop it down and then you chop it up." He's right. English doesn't make sense. And what Yakov Smirnoff was referring to was what we call phrasal verbs. And we don't really learn about them as native speakers, but we use them constantly. Now, phrasal verbs are two or more words that together act as a completely new word with a meaning separate from the original words. They are similar to idioms, which you should avoid like the plague, but they're much more insidious because there are thousands of them and we are really oblivious to using them. So here's a longer example in the form of a brief story. Let's say a new team is rolling out an app that detects climate change, and the project director, Alex, has just gotten over the flu and really wasn't up for delaying the launch any…