Time for a phrasal verb. Today it\u2019s \u201cdry up.\u201d I love these phrasal verbs because they\u2019re so common in everyday speech that I think nothing of them. Then, when I have to describe them for you, I laugh at how silly they are sometimes. Dry up. Okay, how to explain this\u2026all right. Start with something that you think is like a continuous flow. It can be physical, like an oil well, right, it just continuously produces oil. Or it can be something more intangible, like a flow of money. If something is continuously flowing, but then stops, then you say that thing dried up.<\/p>\n
Huawei\u2019s business outside China is starting to dry up. They were doing good business in Europe, stealing customers from rivals Nokia and Ericsson. They had a good business, lots of money coming in. But with its latest controversy, its business outside China is starting to dry up. It\u2019s not gone completely, but it\u2019s starting to dry up. Inside China is another story, of course.<\/p>\n
What else? Support for Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, is starting to dry up. Not a lot of people were satisfied with the Brexit deal she negotiated. We talked about that on Thursday. I wouldn\u2019t say she was ever really popular, but the support she has had is starting\u2014starting\u2014to dry up, to disappear. She\u2019s losing support.<\/p>\n
I read a story about Zimbabwe, a country in Africa, which is having fuel shortages. The supply of gasoline dried up in that country a few weeks ago. Most of us are used to a world in which there\u2019s gas at the gas station, right? We might not like the price, but it\u2019s always there. In Zimbabwe last week, the supply dried up. People waited for hours, but there just wasn\u2019t any gas to buy.<\/p>\n
In troubled countries, supplies of basic goods like medicine and food can dry up. That\u2019s the case in Venezuela these days. It\u2019s a really sad situation, but in many towns and cities, the supply of everyday staples has dried up. They can\u2019t get what they need to eat and stay healthy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all for today\u2019s episode of Plain English. Don\u2019t forget MosaLingua at PlainEnglish.com\/learn. If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ll have some time off at the holidays. I\u2019ll be practicing my Spanish\u2014maybe you\u2019ll be working on your English. And MosaLingua is a great way to do that. Learn all about the fantastic resources they have at PlainEnglish.com\/learn.<\/p>\n
Once again from JR and me, have a very Merry Christmas tomorrow. If you don\u2019t celebrate Christmas, well, then have a good Tuesday. We\u2019ll be back again on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If a continuous flow of something “dries up”, it stops flowing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"terminology_category":[79],"lesson_number":[164],"keywords":[779,553],"content_tag":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n