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.

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.

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.

> "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.

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.

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

Who is this romantic android enemy of fruit?

John.

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

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."

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).

"Set upon" can mean either "to begin to attack" or "to cause to begin to attack", although in the latter case the target of attack goes between "set" and "upon":

The dog set upon the cat. (began to attack the cat)

The person set the dog upon the cat. (caused the dog to begin to attack the cat)

The second meaning could make sense in the original sentence with John being the attacker, a date (fruit) being the target of attack, and an unspecified party being the one who caused John to attack. In this case there is a past-tense passive with "was" + the past participle of the verb (like "was liked", "was seen", "was taken"), but the past participle of "set upon" is identical to the present form, so "was set upon" means either "was attacked" or was caused to attack. But only the second meaning is plausible when followed by "a date", as opposed to "by a date".

"John was set upon a date" → John was caused to attack a date

"John was set upon by a date" → John was attacked by a date

This reminds me that phrasal verbs really are one of the trickiest things in English. Some of my non-native speaker friends have several books just about this topic, because it's so subtle and pervasive in English.

Thank you for the clarification. I suspected the "by" portion might be key, mainly because it felt like it was missing (and thus a requirement). That it helps distinguish the meaning makes sense.

I really should spend some time to research the mechanics of my native tongue, rather than rely on what sounds right and the simplistic rules I can remember from primary school. This has been on my mental to-do list at different times over the years, but I always seem to have it de-prioritized and then I forget about it. :/

Just remember that language isn't truly normative - in general, one of the best tests for "correctness" is "appears in speech by native speakers". Which is somewhat complicated by the existence of written language. In English, Shakespeare is somewhat famously the inventor of a number of idioms that would probably seem strange at the time, but are now ingrained to the English language, see eg:

"You're quoting Shakespeare" - Rob Brydon reveals popular Shakespeare phrases in everyday use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig6f5fT0Xho

Or, "My Shakespeare - a new poem by Kate Tempest": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_auc2Z67OM

Sure. Another analogy without the phrasal verb might be "give", which has an indirect object:

John has given a date. (he stated when something would happen, or he donated a fruit to someone)

John was given a date. (he received a fruit as a gift)

John was given by a date. (most likely interpretation is that someone's romantic partner, maybe John's, nominated John for some position or role)

GP means it in the sense of "The attack dog was set upon the intruder" (e.g. by its master).

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

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

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.

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

Admittedly, that sounds a bit old-fashioned.

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".

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.