Make up for

To make up for

It’s been a while since we’ve done a pure phrasal verb, but I’ve got one for you today. And that phrasal verb is “make up,” specifically, “to make up for” something. To make up for something: what a weird little combination of words. Here’s how you heard it in the original context: Cuba’s economy does not have enough other exports to make up for the loss in its More Doctors program in Brazil. There are not enough other sources of income to make up for the loss in income from More Doctors.

Make up for, in this case means, to compensate for, or to offset it. So they’re losing money with one program, but they can’t make more money in another way. They can’t make up for it with other subsidies.

You want to use this generally—generally—when something in one area is missing, and you fill it in with something from another area. I know that sounds pretty vague, so here are a few more examples.

I’m starting a new project at work—doesn’t it seem like I’m always starting a new project at work? You might be wondering if I ever finish them or if I’m always just starting them. Anyway, I’m starting a new project, but unfortunately I’m going to miss the whole first week due to other commitments. Yikes! I’m going to need to make up for this by doing some extra reading, some extra preparation, and talking to my other team members who are going to be there the first week. So, I’m going to be absent—something’s missing—I won’t be there the first week. However, I’m going to try to make this less bad, I’m going to try to make up for this, by doing some additional preparation before I officially begin.

We just had our big Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and one thing we Americans do on Thanksgiving is we eat a lot. Some people drink a lot too. But a lot of people were on diets and they probably didn’t stick to their diets over the long Thanksgiving weekend. They’re going to have to make up for that by doing some additional exercise in the coming weeks. So they missed their diet over Thanksgiving, but they’re going to even things out, they’re going to make up for it, by doing some extra exercise the next week.

Whenever I was sick and had to miss school as a kid, the teachers gave me additional materials to read and more homework to make up for the time I missed in the classroom.

In our midterm elections, the Republicans lost a lot of voters in the suburbs of our larger cities. Suburbs tend to be more Republican areas, and the Republicans lost some of those voters in the mid-term elections. They were hoping that they would gain more voters in rural areas to make up for their loss in the suburbs, but it didn’t work out that way. They couldn’t make up for losing those suburban votes, and they suffered a big political loss in the Congressional elections.

So that’s make up for. Like a lot of phrasal verbs, there are a few other ways to use it, but I wanted to stick with just that one example in today’s episode.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Thursday edition of Plain English. Remember we’re here every Monday and Thursday and you can download the show on the Apple Podcasts app if you’re on an iPhone or on the Google Podcasts app if you’re on Android. Just go to the Google Play store, and download the Google Podcasts app. You can find us easily on Google Podcasts by searching for our name. JR and I will be back with episode number 110 on Monday. That episode will be about the world’s first genetically modified baby.

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