grammaticality - Is there any rule about splitting phrasal verbs?


I thought of this question right after I posted a tweet about a service upgrading me to a free student account since I am in college. I said "That really helps a broke college student out." I actually paused for a second while I was writing that to decide if I should say



That really helps out a broke college student.



or



That really helps a broke college student out.



Are there any prescriptive rules about splitting phrasal verbs like this? I know this breaks the "don't put a preposition at the end of a sentence" rule, but that "rule" has an exception for phrasal verbs.


To clarify:



  1. Is there any rule that says phrasal verbs can't be split, even if it is just an imposed, prescriptive rule?

  2. Does splitting a phrasal verb to put a preposition at the end of a sentence fall under the phrasal verb exception to the prepositions at the end of a sentence rule?



Answer



The informal rule is a stylistic one. Keep the complement as close as possible.



That really helps me out.



Clearly this is not a lot of separation, and to phrase it "helps out me" would sound awkward and awful.



That really helps out the children who are starving every day in Africa.



To put "out" at the end would simply require the reader or listener to wait too long to parse your verb as a phrasal verb.


To sum it all up: it's a judgment call.


To sum up everything I have stated in this response: it's still a judgment call.


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