Learn English – get out of the car vs get out the car

grammargrammaticality

Is there such a rule:
get out of the car = get out the car
out the bag = out of the bag???

Recently I've come across some British native speaker video, he wrote idiom:
"let the cat out the bag". I commented that there should be the preposition "of".
But he answered "You'll see that 'of' preposition dropped in all sorts of 'out of' expressions. E.g 'Get out the car!'".

So now I don't understand. Does this "rule" really exist and I can drop "of" in 'out of' expressions?

Best Answer

These are different phrasal verbs. "To get out of (something)" means, variously,

  1. to exit ("She screamed at me to get out of the house")
  2. to avoid ("You can get out of the meeting by telling the execs that you have a report due")
  3. to remove ("Why were you out running in the rain? Get out of those wet clothes!")
  4. to benefit ("You can get a lot of money out of this deal, if you get in early)
  5. to persuade or interrogate ("Fred, see what information you can get out of the suspect")

and others. Meanwhile, to "get out (something)" can mean:

  1. to leave ("The police stormed the office and told us all to get out")
  2. to clean ("This new detergent will help get out even the toughest stains from your clothes")
  3. to take out ("Please get out the flour and the sugar from the pantry?")
  4. to reveal ("If word of this gets out, we're in a lot of trouble")
  5. to disseminate ("Help us get out the word to vote this election")

and others.

Because these verbs have different meanings, it's important to memorize them as if they were separate verbs, and learn to use them in the appropriate context. Yes, certain (British) dialects do drop the prepositions from these phrasal verbs, but unless you also use the other phrases characteristic of the dialect, it won't sound right and can be confusing to the listener.

As in your example, "Get out the car!" to mean "quickly exit the vehicle" makes sense when issued in the right context. By itself, however, it sounds like you're asking me to take out the car from something like a garage, so we can go for a nice drive.

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