You Call that Acting up?

This post shows the two main phrasal verbs in the English language that use the word “act.” Acting up and acting like.

It also gives the definition of each phrasal verb and shows how it is used.

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In the English language, there are two main phrasal verbs that use the word “act,” but they have slightly different meanings.

Acting up: The first phrasal verb that uses the word “act” is “act up.” This has a couple different meanings based on context. First of all, it can mean to misbehave and it can also mean “not working properly.” The first definition of this phrasal verb primarily refers to people, especially children. For example:

Even though I told him to behave while we had company, he keeps acting up.

The second definition refers primarily to machines and parts of the body that are not working properly. Here are a couple of examples:

1. I don’t think I can take you to church this Sunday because my car was acting up, and I had to take it to the mechanic.

2. My back keeps acting up; I must be getting old.

Act like: The second phrasal verb that uses the word “act” is “act like.” This is the more common of the two phrasal verbs and has a more literal meaning. In every case in which this phrase appears as a phrasal verb, it means “to behave in a way that is like __” or “act as if”. Here are a couple of examples:

1. You just had a fight with your best friend and you act like nothing happened!

2. Quit acting like a child.

Here are some places where this phrase is used. The descriptions of the videos on this page talk about different movie-making programs acting up. The phrasal verb is in bold in each description:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=acting+up&suggested_categories=24%2C2%2C22&page=2

The title of this article gives another example of how this phrase is used:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/7140504/Herman-Van-Rompuy-accused-of-acting-like-a-king.html