Phrasal Verbs – ‘Plugged In’ or ‘Plugged In In’

phrasal-verbsprepositions

Where's the charger? It's not plugged in in the usual place.

Where's the charger? It's not plugged in the usual place.

I'm a native English speaker, but I've realised I'm not sure which of the above sentences are correct. Should you swap the "in" part of the phrasal verb "plug in" for the preposition in, or is it correct to have two "ins"?

And yes, I know there are less awkward ways of phrasing this, but I'm curious as to what the prescriptive rule is.

Best Answer

In English, it's not incorrect to have two consecutive repeated words in a sentence, and one place you'll encounter that is a phrasal verb followed by a preposition.

For example:

Nevertheless, other shows went on on the fatal day.
(H.L. Mencken, On Politics)

They scuttled the vessel off the harbour's mouth, and came in in the boat.
(J.L. Stokes, Discoveries in Australia)

However, sometimes the resulting wording reads a little awkwardly, so an author might try to rephrase the sentence to skirt the problem. Sometimes a comma might help improve readability:

She's got enough of her own to deal with, with the doings of her soddish husband and three rumbustious kids.
(L. Glaister, Limestone and Clay)

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