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Wednesday
Mar032010

“I got yelled at for not calling.”

You're a teenager and you stayed out late the night before without calling your parents to tell them. They were angry and yelled at you. The next day at school, you tell your friend that you were out with:

I got yelled at for not calling.

get ___ed

For actions that other people do to you, you can use "got ___ed".  Usually this structure suggests that the action was negative:

I got yelled at.

I got punished.

He got thrown in jail.

For positive actions, it's more common to use the "was ___ed" form:

I was praised for my presentation to the board.

When you use this structure, remember to include the words like "at" which go along with the verb.

for not (doing something)

"Not doing" something is the opposite of "doing something".  This is a good casual way of talking about something that you didn't do. More formal ways to describe it are "for failing to (do something)" and "for neglecting to (do something)."

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