Serve up

Serve up

Today’s phrasal verb is “to serve up.” To serve up means to give something or to offer it.

This is a tricky one to use, and I don’t have any good guidelines or rules for you on how to use it, or when to use “serve up” instead of “serve.” You say that a person “serves a meal” or the bartender “served me a glass of wine.” You would say a person “served” in the military or “served” as a volunteer at church or whatever.

When you say “serve up” you’re taking something and giving it to someone else, almost making it an easy gift to that person. You originally heard it in the context of the videos TikTok serves up. They serve videos up to their users: they give them to their users and they make it easy to consume. At first, they served up videos from the general population to really young kids; they now only serve up age-appropriate videos, they say.

You can say a funny movie served up some good laughs. It was Halloween last week in the US, and a lot of places served up a spooky and scary atmosphere—shops, restaurants, etc. Restaurants and cafés serve up pumpkin-flavored recipes this time of year. Starbucks always serves up a pumpkin spiced latte this year. Careful: you would say “serve up” for the company making these things available. But an individual barista at Starbucks would serve you your individual drink.

Candidates for office can serve up different proposals for fixing their towns or their country. You might say one candidate is serving up the same old proposals from the past. You could say a candidate is serving up a lot of excuses for bad behavior. Or a person might serve up some innovative ideas for the future.

TikTok serves up videos for users. Spotify serves up the newest music. The Great American Beer Fest in Denver serves up craft beer from all around the world. They make it available; they make it easy to consume.

Quote of the week

Here’s the quote of the week, it’s an Instagram influencer talking about TikTok content made by adults. You know I said earlier that I thought corporations would have mixed results trying to act in character on TikTok. Here’s what Jack Wagner, an Instagram influencer, said: “I haven’t seen one piece of content on there made by an adult that’s normal and good. To be a grown adult doing a cute karaoke video on an app and trying to make it go viral is odd behavior.”

I think that’s really funny. A lot of you have gotten to know me a bit, either just by listening or by chatting on WhatsApp or email, and a few of you in person—but I think it’s safe to say, I don’t belong on TikTok. I will refrain from odd behavior.

You won’t be able to find us on TikTok. But you can say hello on WhatsApp. Just go to PlainEnglish.com/WhatsApp from your phone and it will open a message right to me. I love hearing from listeners on there, so I hope you get a chance to say hello on WhatsApp.

That is all for today. Thanks again for being with us. It is truly my favorite time of the week, when I get to sit down and record these messages to you. We will be back, as always, on Thursday with another new episode. If you want to share your thoughts on TikTok, make sure to go to PlainEnglish.com/204 and leave a message to me in the comments: JR and I reply to all comments on the web site.

If you can understand this program, then you might be ready to speed things up a little, with Plain English Plus+. As a member of Plain English Plus+, you can listen to a fast version of this very program. A lot of members listen to both—they listen to the slow version first to understand the topic; then they listen to the fast version to see how it sounds at full speed. I know some of you speed up this program on your podcast player, but if you’re really serious about improving your listening, there’s no substitute for the full-speed version. And of course, you have the transcript available—and the Plus+ transcripts include our instant translations into seven languages. So what are you waiting for? If you’d like to speed things up, come join us at PlainEnglish.com/Plus.

See you on Thursday!