Apology for this belated post. The 7th must-know BE phrasal verb is “BE+ABOUT” . First of all, the most obvious and straightforward meaning of “about” is “regarding”.
7-Be about…
A: I’ve just finished reading a very interesting book. B: Really? What is it about?
=
What is the story of the book? What is the topic of the book?
We also use it in reaction to some odd event or someone’s strange behavior:
Situation 1
You get to work one morning, your boss is telling your friend off (talking to him angrily because he might have made a mistake or done something wrong). Then once your boss walks away and goes back into his office, you ask your friend:
Hey, what was THAT about?
=
Why was the boss telling you off like that? What was he angry with you about? etc
Situation 2
You come back home from work, you’re sitting around the kitchen table having dinner with your wife, who hasn’t been out of the house all day and is not working at the moment. After you make an innocent remark on the food being a little salty, your wife almost goes crazy and starts to shout at you saying “look, if you don’t like my food, you don’t need to eat it okay? I’m sorry if I’m not good at this…”, then you say:
Hey calm down, what is THIS about?
=
What’s wrong? What are you so angry about? Tell me the real reason (the salt remark is not it)! etc
Another use for “about” is with “to” after it, “be about to” do something:
Hey man, I was about to call you, but you called first!
=
I was going to call you just a few seconds before YOU did!
He’s just about to go to work, hold on, I’ll call him for you.
=
He’s at the door getting ready to walk out the door.
We also use “about” after “be” + “all” (very often) to say that we enjoy or like something, that we are enthusiastic about some activity:
I’m all about sports and eating healthy.
=
I enjoy/like sports very much and love eating healthy
A: I’m going to Europe next summer, wanna come along? B: Hell yeah, I’m all about travel and seeing new places.
=
I love travel and I’m excited about travel and seeing new places.
Now, this one is not strictly “be + about” as it has another preposition in between, “on”, “be on about”. We say it to those who keep on arguing, whining or complaining about us/to us about something:
A: I can’t believe you SAID that! I never expected to hear something like that from YOU! You’re the last person in the whole world I expected to hear that from. Serious. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am! B: What are you on about?
=
B: What do you keep on whining about?
That’s it guys! Feel free to ask or add more examples if you can think of any, because I really want this to be useful for as many learners as possible…that’s what I’m all about!
Leave a Reply