Dear Geist,

What is a particle? I wrote a sentence on my worksheet for English as Another Language, “My mother got very sick but she finally pulled out.” My teacher ticked my sentence and wrote CHECK PARTICLE. What does that mean?

—Hazeem, Guelph ON

Dear Hazeem,

Particle has several meanings. In English grammar and usage, it refers to a word that doesn't always function as a regular part of speech, but plays some other role in a word or phrase. In your sentence, pulled out is a phrasal verb—a two-word verb that has a meaning different from the word pulled on its own. The added word—in this case out, which makes pulled out different in meaning from pulled—is the particle. The phrase pulled out is well established in English. We think your instructor asked you to check the particle because pulled out is not the usual phrasal verb in a sentence like yours. The usual way to describe a recovery after a serious illness is she pulled through, rather than she pulled out.

—The Editors