S2E3: Phrasal Verbs (or Business Slang)

Now, let’s look at the second type of business slang you can use in your emails. I will read a list of phrasal verbs that are appropriate to use in your business emails. I will start by reading the phrasal verb then I will mention the meaning and then I will give an example sentence.

Phrasal verb	Meaning	Example sentence
Crack on	To begin or to start.	‘Let’s crack on.’
To action	To do something/complete a task.	‘I need you to action this immediately.’
Circle back	To return to.	‘Let’s circle back to the first point.’
Pull out	To leave an activity, event or situation	‘Patricia pulled out at the last minute.’
Clock off	To record the time you leave work	‘Danny already clocked off for the night.’
Clock out	To leave work	‘I’m going to clock out.’
Pitch in (help out)	To help somebody	‘I was hoping you could pitch in.’
Go over	To check something carefully	‘Do you have time to go over the latest figures with me?’
Do over	To do something again	‘Can I just have a do over?’ / ‘Do this over.’
Call off	To cancel something.	‘Why don’t we just call the meeting off?’
Drop off	To leave something somewhere	‘I’ll drop the reports off at your office tomorrow morning.’
Back up	To support	‘This conference is very difficult to organise, I need some back up.’
Figure out	To understand something	‘I’ve finally figured out the problem with the buttons.’
Cut in	To interrupt	‘May I cut in? I have some thoughts.’
Keep up	To continue doing something	‘You did great work today. Keep it up.’
Hand over	To give something to someone	‘I need you to hand over the materials from last week.’
Think over	To consider	‘I need to think this over.’
Sort out	To organise something	‘Ian is going to finally sort out the storage cupboard.’

Bonus

Here’s a phrase (or you could call it a noise) that is used a lot in spoken English. Admittedly you’re not going to send this phrase to your colleagues via email but you may say it out loud. The phrase is: ‘uming and ahing’. If someone is ‘uming and ahing’ then they’re still considering/thinking about something. It means that they haven’t made their decision yet. In the next episode I will discuss Extremely Formal English. Stay tuned.