What is the correct order of verb - modifer - subject?

Question

Dummy question here, but would it be "pick up [an item] or pick [an item] up? Appreciate any help.

Answer 1

People say both, at least in US English. But if you consider "pick up" as a phrase that means as get, raise, or take, then logically the two words should stay together.

But -- English allows variation for emphasis. Prepositions in some prepositional phrases can be separated without becoming gibberish. You can split infinitives in English. You can do a lot of things that are right in some cases and wrong in others. You can "lift up your spirit" or "lift your spirit up" if you are preaching to a crowd.

According to an excellent explanation on this site (https://jakubmarian.com/splitting-phrasal-verb-and-preposition-particle-in-english/)...

"There are in fact two types of phrasal verbs, the so called prepositional phrasal verbs, e.g. “look after someone”, and particle phrasal verbs, e.g. “let someone down”. The terminology here is somewhat unfortunate, and in fact, linguists usually do not call the first type “phrasal verbs”.

So, you can "pick something up" but you can't "look something after." Some phrases with a preposition can be split, and some become nonsense if they are split. "Pick up" can be split and still be completely understandable.