Dear QWers, let me just go onto the “make advances” thing one more day. Regarding yesterday’s QW 0624, the other contributor DOUBLE ‘C’ mentioned something interesting. “make a pass at someone” is OK, but “make passes at someone” sounds weird. Good point. When I hear the word “pass”, I visualize a ball being thrown from one person to another. I never imagine multiple balls coming at one person! (That’s really scary and can be a kind of bullying!). In the “make a pass at someone” case, the attempt to seduce someone is regarded as a whole even though it actually is a sequence of actions. Now I’d like to look at the difference in prepositions used in both phrases, that is, “to” is used in “make advances to someone” whereas “at” is used in “make a pass at”. My personal interpretation of the preposition of “to” is “directed to some point or orientation over distance”, and the one of “at” is “to aim at a small spot accurately”. When those two interpretations applied, it sounds to me that “make advances to someone” can imply multiple acts of seducing with a slim chance or likelihood of success , whereas “make a pass at” should mean the focused action on somebody with well-planned strategies. Paying attention to prepositions used in certain phrases can give me other opportunities to enrich into grammatical knowledge and insight.
(5 min for brainstorming / 10+5 min for writing / 232 words / to be self-corrected on my blog)
make a big deal about something/ make a (big) stink about someone/ make no mistake about something/ make a grab at someone or something/ make a pass at someone/ make a pass at something/ make a beeline for something or someone/ make a bolt for someone or something/ make a btreak for someone or something/ make a dash for someone or something/ make a name for oneself/ make a pitch for someone or something/ make a play for someone/ make an exception for someone/ make a dent in something/ make a difference in someone or something/ make a believer (out) of someone/ make a clean breast of something (to someone)/ make a day of it/ make a fool of someone/ make a go of something/ make a habit of something/ make a man of someone/ make a meal of something/ make a mental note of something/ make a mess of something/ make a mockery of something/ make a night of it/ make a note of something/ make a nuisance of oneself/ make a pig of oneself/ make a point of something/ make a practice of something/ make a secret of something/ make an example of someone/ make an exhibition of oneself/ make an honest woman of someone/ make a move on someone/ make a start on something/ make an impression on someone/ make a monkey out of someone/ make a mountain out of a molehill/ make a fess over someone or sonething/ make a hit with someone/ make friends with someone/ make points with someone/
II. Make + noun (plural)
make cracks about someone or something/ make eyes at someone/ make allowances for someone or something/ make amends (to someone) for someone or something/ make arrangements (with someone) for something/ make tracks for something/ make inroads into something/ make demands of/on someone or something/ make heads or tails of someone of something/ make advances to someone/ make amends (to someone or something) (for something)
III. Make + noun, etc.
make good at something/ make application (to someone or something) (for something)/ make change (for someone) (for something)/ make life miserable for someone/ make room for someone or something/ make time for someone or something/ make way for someone or something/ make fast work of someone or something/ make fun of someone or something/ make (good) use of something/ make light of something/ make mention of someone or something/ make mincemeat (out) of someone/ make hamburger (out) of something/ make nonsense of something/ make good on something/ make love to someone/ make no difference to someone/ make free with someone/ make free with something/ make time with someone
The list above contains many phrasal verbs, but still it's just part of the whole list under 'make', there are just so many. And just with 'make', there are 'that' many phrasal verbs, it's clear you can't just memorize every one of them. I mean every phrasal verb. Well, technically speaking, you can do it spending decades of your English language learning career on that, but it's better you learn prepositions properly and become comfortable with them. And believe you me; the only way to do it is to learn to 'use' them properly in writing and speech. (5 min. 96 words)
> DOUBLE 'C'
Thank you for contributing such a comprehensive list of phrasal verbs with "make". It should be good input for any QWers coming here. We, English language learners tend to easily be overwhelmed by the infinite number of commonly used phrasal verbs and give up inputting them eventually. But as you suggested, the only way to build up the knowledge of phrasal verbs is to learn the functions and semantic domains of accompanying prepositions and try using those phrasal verbs in writing and speaking. I hope this Quick Write Forum will be the venue where QWers practice writing just for their own good. So will I. Thank you again for your informative piece. (No brainstorming / about 10 min / 113 words)
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