Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing great and that you're ready to practice your English with another phrasal verb episode.
Today we're going to learn two phrasal verbs.
The first one is but in and the second one is butter up.
So first, let's define these phrasal verbs and see an example of each one.
But in means to interfere or intrude in a conversation or situation in which the person is not wanted or not invited.
For example, I could say, I was trying to talk to her but her friend kept butting in.
In this context.
What I'm saying is that I was trying to talk to this girl or this woman, but I couldn't do so very easily because the girl's friend kept interfering and interrupting us and participating in the conversation, even though she wasn't welcome.
I did not want her to participate in the conversation.
I just wanted to talk to the other girl.
But this girl kept butting in.
She kept interfering, interrupting, etc.
So that's butt in.
And butter up refers to when someone falls.
Flatters or praises someone so that they can get their help or support.
For example, I could say don't try and butter me up.
I know you just want me to give you that information.
What I'm saying here is I'm telling the person not to try to flatter me and say nice things about me and make me feel good, just so that I'll tell them the information.
So I'm telling that person not to butter me up.
OK, now I'm going to talk a little bit about this really annoying person at work.
This isn't a true story.
This is fiction.
But I'm going to use this story as a way to use these two phrasal verbs again and again so that by the end of this episode you should be able to understand these phrasal verbs pretty well and hopefully you can even use them in your own sentences.
So let me tell you about this annoying person at work.
So he would always try to get involved in things that didn't pertain to him.
When something doesn't pertain to you, that means you are not relevant to this topic.
You don't need to know about it.
It's not related to you or your situation.
So this man would always try to get involved in things that didn't pertain to him.
He always wanted to be part of everything.
Every conversation, every situation, every decision, everything.
He was always butting in even though he wasn't invited into these different situations.
So I remember talking to a boss that I had about ideas for a project.
I had some different ideas for for the project and the boss had asked me to come up with some ideas.
And this coworker kept butting in and he kept giving his ideas.
And this was really annoying because this was supposed to be a discussion between my boss and me, not my boss, me and this other coworker.
But he kept butting in and giving his ideas.
He even interrupted me as I was talking to tell me that one of my ideas wouldn't work, for different reasons.
He kept butting in with comments like that, even though this wasn't even his area of expertise.
He was not an expert in the field that was relevant to the project we wanted to do.
And so he had no place there, meaning there was no reason why he should have been involved in that discussion earlier.
But he kept butting in and giving his ideas.
I also remember another situation in which I was talking to my boss about problems that we were having with a client.
And this was a serious issue, a serious conversation we were having.
And of course, this other coworker started butting in and trying to give advice on what to do.
And this was really annoying that he kept butting in.
And even my boss was annoyed by this and had to tell him to stop butting in, to stop talking and to go continue with his work.
So there were many situations like that.
And there were situations in which we were having serious conversations among coworkers, among different workers and supervisors and, regardless of what we were talking about, this person felt the need to butt in and give his two cents, as we say.
When you give your two cents, you're giving your opinion about a subject.
He always felt the need to butt in and start talking, even when the other people were having serious conversations.
This man was known for butting in when he didn't belong in that situation or in that conversation.
He was known for that.
And the worst situation in which this happened was when I was talking to an important client in person there at the office.
And this man came up, butted in and started talking about different things.
And the client was confused about who this person was, why he was interrupting our discussion and why he was saying all these different things, and I had to apologize on his behalf.
Meaning he didn't apologize.
I apologized for the co-worker and I had to later call that client and explain to him the whole situation with that co-worker and apologize again later.
So that was not a good situation.
Now, let me also talk about how this coworker would try to flatter our superiors.
He tried to butter them up to win favor, to gain more influence in the company.
One thing that he would do constantly was that he complimented their appearance, but not just normal compliments.
He was excessive, meaning he did this to a degree that was unnecessary.
It was too much.
So if he saw them with a new haircut, he would go on and on about how great their hair looked.
He would butter them up by telling them how amazing their new haircut was.
It was too much.
The superiors would also look uncomfortable when they received that flattery, those excessive compliments.
They felt like they were getting buttered up, because no one talks that much about another person's haircut.
So he would constantly butter them up and tell them how great they looked.
He would compliment their haircut.
He would compliment their outfits.
It was just too much, right?
It was obvious that he was buttering them up because he wanted them to to like him and maybe give him more power or influence in the company.
And he would constantly butter them up by talking too positively about their work, about how they were doing a fantastic job.
It's good to compliment someone when they do a good job.
But this guy was obviously buttering them up.
It was excessive.
Even when they didn't really do a good job, he would tell them how great their work was and butter them up like that.
And sometimes they realized it and sometimes they didn't.
But for the rest of us, his coworkers, we all knew what he was doing.
And some coworkers would roll their eyes when they heard him butter them up like this.
And so that was something that he did constantly, and he would ask questions like what can I do to be successful, like you?
He would ask that type of question to the superiors. our managers and people like that.
And this type of question was very insincere.
Of course, he just wanted to flatter them, butter them up, make them feel important, because when you make someone feel important, they like you more.
You can gain influence over them, possibly.
So he would ask questions like that and, of course, when the other co-workers would hear that, They would roll their eyes and talk about how this man was such an insincere person and just wanted to butter up the superiors.
So that was a very constant occurrence.
And the thing was that in private this man would talk completely differently when there wasn't manager around.
But as soon as a manager was present he would immediately change the way he talked and he would immediately start complimenting them and trying to be really good buddies with them.
It was really obvious.
But when there was no manager there he was a little more normal and he didn't try to butter anyone up and he even talked negatively about the superiors when they weren't around, and So it was very clear to see that he was just flattering them when they were around.
He was just buttering them up.
He wasn't being genuine, because when they weren't there, he said different things, sometimes the opposite of what he would say when they were present.
So I don't know if you've ever known someone like that, but it's not great to work with a coworker who always tries to butter up the superiors.
And a lot of times the superiors don't like that either.
So that was the story of this annoying person at work.
Hopefully, as I was talking, you were able to hear me use those two phrasal verbs again and again.
And hopefully now you feel like you can use them in your own sentences.
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So I help you improve your pronunciation to sound more natural.
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That link is down below.
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Conversations podcast in which I talk to different teachers from around the country.
It's a lot of fun and it's great practice for your listening.
And you can also use that as a resource to find a good English teacher for yourself.
Many of my listeners have already done that.
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Alright, thank you so much for listening to this phrasal verb episode and I'll talk to you in the next one.
