Why do we now swap in or out, when we used to just swap?

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DrMacAndDog@reddit

You used them differently. You swap A for B. You swap in A. You needn’t specify who A is exchanged for. Equally you could swap out B without specifying who comes in.

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travelingwhilestupid@reddit

Yeah... unless I'm missing something. OP, can you give some real world examples?

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Far-Sir-825@reddit (OP)

You’re ordering a full English. You want to swap in black pudding and swap out the tinned tomatoes. Why can’t you just swap the TT’s for the BP?

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travelingwhilestupid@reddit

I've never heard people say that. I've heard people say "swap out the old RAM for some new RAM" or something like that.

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spoo4brains@reddit

I would always say swap x for y, it would occur to me to say swap in in that situation.

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Icy_Mixture1482@reddit

I’ve been antagonising UK Redditors today (inadvertently) with another grammar-themed post about comma splices.

But I get what you’re saying. I’ve noticed many people using superfluous prepositional phrases:

List out (“list” does fine)
Listen up (“listen” means the same thing)
Meet with (why not just “meet [person]?)

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FreeBogwoppits@reddit

"Swap in" or "swap out" would be when you're changing over with someone to carry out a task or role. Like tapping in or out.

"Can you swap in with Steve and work on the till for a bit"

"Steve, you can swap out with Jimmy, you can go and do the shelves".

"Swap" on its own would be exchanging an item.

"I'll swap my Pikachu card for a Palkea one"

I think, anyway.

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I agree that the words "in" and "out" are not necessary. I get the feeling they are more used when the thing being swapped is within a group of things of a set number. As well as the example someone mentioned about items in a cooked breakfast, I think someone might be likely to say "I swapped out X and swapped in Y to my Fantasy Football team".

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cuppachar@reddit

People love to add extra words because they think it makes them sound clever. See the 'I personally' morons.

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Far-Sir-825@reddit (OP)

I watch a lot of food programmes and “roast off” and “pan frying/fried” always seem to me phrases containing an unnecessary word.

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Wind-and-Waystones@reddit

Pan fry is usually used to distinguish between deep fry. It's adding an extra word to preempt people having multiple methods to fry and wondering which one. It's essentially just replaced shallow fry with a shorter word.

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RetroRegretso@reddit

Who is 'we'?

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Active_Definition_57@reddit

People speaking and writing English.

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nobodyspecialuk24@reddit

I think it implies the reason for you to be doing the swapping.

You swap something out, normally when it’s defective/not working well.

You swap something in when you’re making an improvement.

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Sea-Still5427@reddit

I wasn't sure what the OP meant without an example, but this certainly makes sense, for example swapping out peanut butter for almond butter in a vegan cake recipe if you're bored of peanut butter in every single bloody recipe.

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Far-Sir-825@reddit (OP)

That makes sense. I wasn’t saying it was wrong in the slightest, and language develops but it often seems to me in an age where we tend to abbreviate things more this actually is the opposite.

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MidasToad@reddit

I think you are right, we used to just swap a for b. Now we also have swap in a, or swap out b.

We haven't lost the first sense (I'll swap you my Crunchie for your Topic).

We have gained the second. (Can we swap a Toffee Crisp into the snack selection? I don't mind what gets swapped out).

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Consibl@reddit

One item swaps in, the other item swaps out.

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Far-Sir-825@reddit (OP)

But doesn’t it still mean the same without the in/out?

Being in my 50’s I’m positive the extra word is a comparatively recent thing, we just used to swap things.

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UnacceptableUse@reddit

But you could say "one item swaps, one item swaps". You could say "swap item A for item B" and you can "swap in item A" or "swap out item B"

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BagIll2355@reddit

I agree things were just swooped, it served us well for many years but you know the kids they like to make a change and claim it as a new thing. Let them have it we can ignore it just like I still and will always say Gulf of Mexico and give no f’s who disagrees.

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