Who picks up the phone
In the March 19th issue of the Economist, there is an article “Kamikaze Politics” about political scandals in Japan, which has the following two sentences.
At midweek a new deputy governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, looked likely, at least for a while, to fill the vacuum—an unnecessary one, since candidates acceptable to both sides have been there for the choosing all along, notably Haruhiko Kuroda, head of the Asian Development Bank. By not putting him forward, Mr Fukuda showed himself unable and unwilling even to pick up the phone to the opposition.
Pick up the phone to? What’s that?
A cursory examination of google search results indicates that this seems to be a UK and Australian thing to say. If it happens in America, I’ve certainly never heard it. It’s a nice example of a multiword expression. What’s interesting is that it’s a communication verb that incorporates the means of communication (like phone, fax, email, and write) but which, perhaps due to syntax of the words in the expression, requires the person called to be expressed with the preposition to (like talk, speak, and write).
(yes, write goes in both places: I write (letters) to my aunt every week, but I write my uncle every month)
Interesting. I guess we’d be more likely to say “not even willing to call” or “not even willing to talk to” the other side.
“Pick up the phone to” sounds very odd. If I were to use it, I’d have to say “pick up the phone to call” the other side, I think.
The examples with “write” are interesting. In British English, the second example sounds strange: one would pretty much always include “to” with the indirect object (UNLESS it’s followed by a direct object).
We’d have
“I write to my uncle every month”
“I write a letter to my uncle every month”
and not “I write my uncle every month”
(but we’d have
“I write my uncle a letter every month”
and not “I write to my uncle a letter every month” which I guess sounds weird anywhere?)
Anyway, in response to the Ridger above:
to my British ears “picking up the phone” to someone has just as strong a connotation of picking up the phone when they call you as it does of picking up the phone in order to call them.
Ridger: I’m right with you. The people (linguists, I’ll admit), who I asked about this always said that they expected a verb after the “to” (pick up the phone to…hand it to someone).
Martin: Ooh, interesting, I didn’t expect a difference here (but then I really don’t have any justification for that expectation). I wonder, for “I write to [so-and-so],” does it have to be a letter, or letter-like communication? Or could it be, for instance, a note slipped between students during class? That would be, “Susie wrote to Jane again during class” meaning “wrote a note to.”
I think I can get “pick up the phone to her” as meaning “answer her phone call.” I think I say “I gotta get on the phone to electric company,” and maybe “I’m on the phone to the electric company.”
Someone pointed out the (amusing) possibility of “pick up the phone to the White House” as meaning “pick up the phone which is dedicated to calling the White House.”
Yes, that’s what “pick up the phone to them” sounds like! A dedicated line. Though I can certainly get “on the phone to” someone, be “on the phone with” them is more natural.
“Write” for Martin seems to function like “give” - you give “someone something” or “something to someone”. Interesting. Some speaking verbs aren’t like that for me. I can “call someone / to someone” (though the latter is NOT on the phone, interestingly), or “tell someone something / something to someone”. But “say”is the reverse, you have to “say something to someone” you can’t (I can’t) “say someone something”.
It’s funny, in a lexicography class a few weeks ago we were discussing ’say’ vs ‘tell’ with respect to making fine distinctions among very similar words. If anything ‘inform’ is more like ‘tell’ than anything else, but you can’t say “I informed these facts to him.”
So to summarize (in Am. English) write vs give…
write X to Y
write Y an X
write to Y (sort of communication implcit)
write Y (implicitly, a letter)
give X to Y
give Y an X
give to Y (implicitly, some donation, as in “I’ve already given to you guys”)
give X (implicitly, to some charitable orgs, as in “I gave $500 last year”)