bring up sb vs bring sb up

[Yen]

Na stronach angielski.edu.pl w dziale o phrasalach jest wpis, ze poprawnie
jest "bring up the children" a nipoprawnie jest "bring the children up" poniewaz
czasownik "bring up" zawiera partykule a takich sie nie rozdziala.
Jednakze na takeoff.to/phrasalverbs wyraznie stoi ze jest "bring sb up"
podobniez na owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslphrasal.html
pisza ze "bring up" jest rozdzielny... wiec jak to jest w koncu i dlaczego?

[KenWalsh]

Since my Polish is poor, I don't know if I am answering your question or not. I think you'd like to know when to use "bring up the children" versus "bring the children up." Remember here that "bring up the children" means to raise/rear/nurture the children through adult care and supervision, not to raise the subject of children.

My answer is that, despite all of the times English speakers break the rules, we still aim to avoid ending sentences in prepositions. Therefore, you're more likely to hear "The au pair helped us bring up the children" than "The au pair helped us bring the children up."

Also note that "bring up the children" is a distinct phrase that requires no modifiers. The ear knows that "children" is the last word in the thought before it is reached. On the other hand, "bring the children" could be followed by "toys", "along on vacation", or "up to respect their elders." The last case illustrates when I would use "bring the children up," when I want to continue the thought with an additional modifier. Therefore, you will likely hear:

"We want to bring our children up to respect different views."
"We want to bring our children up to look for peaceful solutions."
"We want to bring our children up to maintain healthy diets."

Does this make the difference clear?

I wonder if this topic has been brought up before on this forum.

[Jedrzej]

Thanks, that was the answer I was looking for! (well, almost :-)
Just to make sure - that means we can say "Your children are naughty! You should bring them up better."?

[KenWalsh]

Your usage is great. Sorry about the little brats you met.

Since you brought up the subject, it's a little more formal to say "raise children" than "bring up children." If I was angry, I'd likely say "You should raise them better!"

[xeo]

if it's a transitive verb you can seperate it or not (it depends on your choice), it doesn't matter and it's still correct...

you CAN'T seperate a transitive verb by an adverb !

he filled late out the application - WRONG!
he filled late the application out - WRONG!

if you replace DIRECT OBJECT by PRONOUN then you HAVE TO seperate a transitive verb

to bring THEM up
to bring HER up

you know...let me dispel your misgiving ... there is "bring sb up" because "somebody" is a PRONOUN that's why it's seperated... PRONOUNS ALWAYS SEPERATE such verbs... it's a rule... everything clear ? so don't panic, everything is in place

of course there are exceptions... as always