Tell off means to speak angrily to someone because they've done something wrong. People use it about parents, teachers and bosses: someone gets an angry talking-to for what they did. The reason is added with for: told me off for being late, and people often say get told off about themselves.
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tell + person + off; tell someone off for + -ing/noun; get told off (for + -ing)
- My manager told me off for sending the report without checking the figures.
- The kids got told off for running around the museum and shouting.
- If you keep leaving dirty dishes in the sink, your flatmates will tell you off.
What changed
First versionMy mum told off me for coming home at two in the morning.
RevisionMy mum told me off for coming home at two in the morning.
It's tempting to treat told off as a single word and put me after it. But in tell off, the pronoun goes between the verb and the particle: told me off, told them off. Only the word order has changed.
Tell off is easy to confuse with tell on, which means to report someone's bad behaviour to a person in authority: My sister told on me, and then Dad told me off. My sister reported me, and Dad scolded me. Tell off is the scolding itself; tell on is the complaint to someone who can punish.
Your turn
Our manager was furious about the missed deadline and ___ in front of the whole team.
Show the answer
told us off — The manager is angry and scolds us in front of the whole team, so told us off fits. Told on us would mean he reported us to someone else, but here he's the one doing the scolding.
Think of a time you were told off as a child or at work. Write who did it and why.
When I was ten, my grandmother told me off for feeding her soup to the cat.
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