Nit-pick time: I think the verb phrase “(to) work out” ought to retain the space between “work” and “out”, even where the derived noun form is hyphenated or has no separation at all.
When the gerund becomes “workouting” and the past tense becomes “workouted”*, I might, begrudgingly, accept the lack of a space.
* or “workouten” I guess, if that old way of forming past tenses becomes fashionable again.
“They work in an office, where they work on some problems and work around (avoid) others.”
“Work about” could be used in place of the latter but would sound a bit dialectal or rustic.
There’s also “He does work about the place”, meaning “He performs tasks in that place.”, but there the “about” is part of the following adverbial phrase rather than a specifier on “work”.
I think there’s probably a case for most English prepositions after “work” come to think of it. As to how useful they’d be, well, it’d be a matter of finding a list of prepositions and see which of them works out.
Nit-pick time: I think the verb phrase “(to) work out” ought to retain the space between “work” and “out”, even where the derived noun form is hyphenated or has no separation at all.
When the gerund becomes “workouting” and the past tense becomes “workouted”*, I might, begrudgingly, accept the lack of a space.
* or “workouten” I guess, if that old way of forming past tenses becomes fashionable again.
I have a similar pedantic issue between log in / login and follow up / follow-up.
Log in is an action. Login is part of credentials. >_<
Man that nitpick was a real mental workout.
How very German of you.
I understand your point in the context of “switch on” and “switch off”, but the base verb “work” doesn’t have many separable prefix/suffixes.
To work in? To work on (same as work)? To work about (does that mean anything)?
“They work in an office, where they work on some problems and work around (avoid) others.”
“Work about” could be used in place of the latter but would sound a bit dialectal or rustic.
There’s also “He does work about the place”, meaning “He performs tasks in that place.”, but there the “about” is part of the following adverbial phrase rather than a specifier on “work”.
I think there’s probably a case for most English prepositions after “work” come to think of it. As to how useful they’d be, well, it’d be a matter of finding a list of prepositions and see which of them works out.
There are actually more distinct meanings than I initially thought, but yeah most of them are prepositions