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Hi, my name is Holden Harris and I live in Louisiana which is in the

southern part of the United States. Today I am here to talk to you about
three phrasal verbs that you can use in your everyday life. And those
three phrasal verbs are ‘butter up’, ‘hold up’ and ‘blank out’. Okay so
what we’re going to do is we’re going to talk about each of these
individually and I’m going to give you three examples of how you can
use them. Some of them have one definition, some of them have
multiple definitions and ways that you can use them but in any case I’m
going to explain this to you so you have a better understanding of
these three phrasal verbs today.

Now the first that I want to talk about is ‘butter up’ and ‘butter up’ only
has one definition and that is to praise or flatter someone excessively,
usually to gain a favor. You would basically say something nice to
someone, give them compliments, that kind of thing, to get them to be
on your side and to maybe do something that you want them to do. So
I’m going to give you three examples of how this is commonly used.
The first example is:

I buttered up my wife with compliments so that she would cook our

family a good meal tonight.

So let’s say that I’m hungry and I really, really want a good meal and
usually this doesn’t happen for dinner. Let’s say that for dinner I have
to make my own food or you know, I just have to find something and
maybe my family doesn’t have these good meals very often. So what I’ll
do is I will go talk to my wife and say ‘hey’, you know, ‘you look really
nice today’ and ‘oh I think you’re doing a great job here around the
house and doing a great job in your job’ and you know ‘oh I love you’.

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And so I’m giving my wife all these compliments and things hoping
that maybe she will cook a good dinner. I’m buttering her up, okay? I’m
making it easy; if you think of butter – butter is kind of slick and so I’m
making things easy for me. The next example I have for you is:

When Carly butters up her teacher, she usually gives her better
test scores.

So in this example, this is a common thing. If you’ve ever heard the

expression ‘teacher’s apple’ you know, this is a kind of person who
maybe they give good compliments to their teacher like ‘hey Mrs. so-
and-so you look really nice today’ ‘oh, you know, that’s a great shirt
that you have there I really like that’ and so Carly wants a good test
score and maybe if she’s really nice to her teacher then her teacher will
be really nice to her and give her a better score, okay? The third
example I have for that is:

If you butter up your boss, he might give you a promotion.

So let’s say, you know, I work in a company where I really want a

promotion; I want to get to the next level. Maybe I, you know, I’ll get a
pay raise or something like that. So I go to my boss and say the same
things: Hey boss, you’ve been doing a great job lately. I think you’re a
great boss.

And you know what, thank you for all the things you’ve done for me.
And oh, well hey, maybe can I get that promotion?’ So you’re buttering
up your boss, you’re trying to get some kind of favor out of people. So
butter up basically means to praise or flatter someone excessively,
usually to gain a favor.

The second phrasal verb I want to talk about is ‘Hold up’ okay? And
‘hold up’ has several different definitions. I’m going to talk to you –
explain three of them right now. So the first one is to delay when

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travelling. So if you hold something up like, you’re traveling, you’re

going somewhere and there is a delay for some reason. So I could say –
here’s the first example:

The traffic on the road was really bad so I asked myself ‘what’s
holding things up?

What’s causing the delay?’ Is basically what I’m asking. So yeah, I’m
travelling trying to go somewhere and the traffic is just so bad and I
don’t know, I’m like ‘what’s the hold up?’ That’s a common thing
people would say ‘what’s the hold up?’ ‘what’s holding the traffic up?’
Okay, so to delay while travelling.

The second definition that I want to talk about is to rob with violence
or threats thereof. Okay, so in the noun form, you would say, call this a
Hold Up. If a thief goes into a store and tries to steal money and you
know, has a gun and, you know, ‘put your hands up!’ and everybody,
you know, puts their hands up, they’re holding them up. So that’s
where ‘Hold Up’ comes from. And a sentence example of that is:

Jacob was held up by two thieves at the convenience store today.

So maybe there’s a guy named Jacob working at a convenience store

and two robbers come in ‘Hey! Give me all your money! Put your hands
up!’ Jacob is in a Hold Up, you know, he puts his hands up. So that is
commonly, again, Jacob was held up by two robbers. Okay, so it can be
to rob with violence or threats thereof.

The third definition I want to talk about is to remain strong and

working effectively. And I think this one is pretty easy – listen to this
example:

My bicycle has held up for several years now.

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So let’s say that I have a bicycle that I’ve had for a long time and maybe
even though I’ve used it a lot, rode my bicycle. Miles or kilometers or
whatever measurement. But I’ve used it a lot for several years and it’s
still strong, still going strong, still works great. No problems with it,
my bicycle has held up for a long time. Okay, so that third definition of
‘hold up’ can be to remain strong and work effectively. Okay.

Now the last phrasal verb we’re going to talk about today is ‘blank out’
okay. And for this, I’ve got three definitions to give to you. There are a
few more but we’re going to talk about just three today and the first
definition for ‘blank out’ is to cover something completely so that it
cannot be seen. Okay. Now listen to this sentence example:

The criminals did not want their faces to be shown on television so

the news station blanked them out.

So let’s say you have war criminals, those criminals who held up Jacob,
as we talked about when we were talking about ‘hold up’. Those
criminals get arrested and there’s a news report about that on TV and
they don’t want their faces to be shown so what you see when you
watch the television is you see these criminals but maybe there’s a
black, a black square or rectangle covering their face so it’s blanking
out their face. Or even sometimes when you see something that’s
blanked out, maybe their faces are just blurry like there’s some kind of
pixelated thing covering their face on TV so you can’t see them. That’s
blanked out. It can be to cover something completely so that it can’t be
seen.

The second definition I want to talk about. This deals with the mind.
Okay, so ‘blank out’ can mean to deliberately forget something
unpleasant. Let’s say that I have just a bad memory. A bad memory
from my childhood and listen to this sentence example:

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I always try to blank out my horrifying memories of the time I

almost drowned.

Okay, people often have bad things in their past. Let’s pretend that I
almost drowned when I was a young child and that’s just a memory
that is so painful for me to think about. I just do not want to think
about that drowning experience because it was so bad and maybe I get
some anxiety, I get some fear when I think about it so I intentionally try
not to think – I try to anytime that thought comes into my head I blank
it out. I just try to erase it. Okay? Try to cover it up, almost like in our
first definition like covering up our face I try to cover up that memory
and not think about it. So that can be blanking out – to deliberately
forget something unpleasant.

And the last definition for ‘blank out’ is to have a temporary memory
failure. So whereas you could try not to think about something, you
could also just unintentionally forget something. And this is a really
common case. Listen to this example:

Even though he studied for hours and hours, Chase blanked out
several times during his Mathematics exam.

So Chase, let’s pretend that Chase has studied for his math exam for
just so long. He’s been studying for it for weeks. He memorized how to
work the problems, memorized all his formulas. He’s ready for this
math test. He goes in to take it and he gets so nervous that when he’s
taking his exam, he just forgets. He forgets how to do it
unintentionally. He just, he blanks out in the moment. It happens a lot
for people who take tests or even some examples of maybe a singer
who is, you know, at a concert singing a song and they just, they forget
their lyrics. They forget how to, how to sing the song, they blank out.
They can be to have a temporary memory failure. Okay.

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So those are the three phrasal verbs I wanted to talk to you about
today. Again ‘butter up’, ‘hold up’ and ‘blank out’ which can also be, I
think I said ‘black out’ but ‘blank out’, ‘black out’ are kind of…, very,
very similar. But yeah so I hope that you are able to learn something
today. You know, I tried my best to give you the examples you need so
that you can learn how to effectively use these in your daily life. Okay,
so try them out and I wish you good luck and I’ll see you next time.

MAIRO VERGARA ADVANCED PHRASAL VERBS COURSE