[Pitarou]

This is also a common complaint about Simple English books written for English learners. The books claim to have a restricted vocabulary, but they cheat by using phrasal verbs.

Their vocabulary includes verbs like put and set along with prepositions like up, with and upon. You can combine these to generate an enormous number of phrasal verbs like put up with, set upon and so on, which are normally considered to be separate vocabulary items.

[JorgeGT]

As a person whose first language is not English, I find phrasal verbs one of the most challenging parts of the language. In fact I just searched set upon and was greatly surprised that it means attacking violently! I would have never guessed that from the words alone.

[gotodengo]

In this case the phrase is a more artistic way of describing the beginning of a fight. Think of "John set upon Mike angrily" as John set, or selected, Mike as his target.

It's also a great example of the topic at hand because the same phrase could be used like "The book was set upon the table." Describing a book that was placed on a table.

Each version uses the same common vocabulary, to describe wildly different things.

[johnlbevan2]

Or phonetically similar / by moving a space:

"John was set up on a date" - someone arranged a romantic encounter for John. "John was setup on a date" - on some specific day John was assembled. "John was set upon a date" - John assaulted a piece of fruit.

[FlyingAvatar]

> "John was setup on a date" - on some specific day John was assembled.

I read this one as: A romantic encounter was the guise by which John was framed for a crime.

[Pitarou]

Nice try :-), but there's a reason why we write "upon" without a space. In normal speech the prosody makes it perfectly clear that "upon" is one word, rather than two.

[Bjartr]

My read of the last one is that it means "John was set upon [getting] a date"

[nkrisc]

Who is this romantic android enemy of fruit?

[oddsignals]

John.

[aptwebapps]

The last one made me laugh but you need to remove the 'was'.

[LeifCarrotson]

No, it still works. Someone else has caused John to assault the fruit. "The guard dog was set upon an intruder, while John was set upon a date."

[kbenson]

Doesn't the "was" change who the action applies to? E.g. "John assaulted a date" vs "John was assaulted by a date"? I'm not entirely sure "John was set upon a date" makes sense. Then again, I've never been great with the specific rules of English, even though it's my first language (likely because it's my first language, and I learned it not as rules, but through immersion as a child).

[tgb]

Or, alternatively, it means that John was placed on top of a fruit.

[gohrt]

"setup" is a noun form of "set up"

[johnlbevan2]

Whilst this ambiguity is a pain for those learning the language and for clarity, it's also one of the things which makes English a great language for puns/wordplay.

I suspect that having a reduced vocabulary would likely increase the chances of ambiguity, so could be a great source of CNL puns.

[toothbrush]

Or, John was set upon going to the movies tonight, but his friend refused to join him.

Admittedly, that sounds a bit old-fashioned.

[jdmichal]

Honestly any use of upon sounds old-fashioned. It's generally been replaced by on, except in a few contexts by up. Even Google defines it as "a more formal term for on".

[ghaff]

Set on is probably a bit more natural in that context although I'm not sure either is particularly common phraseology.

[Angostura]

From what I recall, 'set' is the word in the English language which has most meanings - over 50.

[Pitarou]

Depending on which dictionary you use, it's either put or set.

[e12e]

Perhaps it's time to revisit some OO/database terms, to avoid things like: Person.set(up), db.put(down), set.contains(Person) ;-)

[alanfalcon]

Context helps: "His foe set upon him with such vigor that he knew he was hopelessly outmatched. He began to silently pray for assistance."

[emartinelli]

I remember when I was studying English in the U.S. with other foreign students some years ago, when the topic was phrasal verbs the grades decreased for entire class. I am Brazilian, the class was composed most of South Koreans and Saudi Arabians.

[schoen]

Phrasal verbs are a hidden problem for estimating English vocabulary competence (as was alluded to earlier in this thread), because they play serious havoc with the idea of "knowing" a word. If you asked English learners if they knew the meanings of "work", "in", "out", and "off", most would say yes at a pretty early stage of their English education.

But that doesn't mean that they'd necessarily correctly interpret (or produce) "work in" 'incorporate (in a narrative or plan), "work out" 'resolve (a problem); deduce (a solution or consequence); deliberately perform physical exercise', "work off" 'eliminate (a debt, obligation, or excessive food intake) through effort'.

And there are hundreds more of those combinations with meanings that need to be learned independently.