One of my students noticed something interesting in a lesson this week.

We:

✔ put on clothes

✔ put on shoes

✔ put on glasses

✔ put on headphones

But we:

✔ put in contact lenses

✔ put in hearing aids

✔ put in earbuds

✔ put in false teeth

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And then we:

✔ take off clothes/glasses/headphones

but

✔ take out contact lenses/hearing aids/earbuds.

English is very logical sometimes… and very strange at other times 😅

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A useful way to think about it:

If something goes inside your eye, ear, or mouth, we use “put in” and “take out”.

But if something goes on the outside of your body, we use "put on" and "take off". 

❓Can you think of any other examples?

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Oh, one more thing...

You can change the word order for all of these phrasal verbs.

For example:

✔ put clothes on

✔ put hearing aids in

✔ take glasses off

✔ take earbuds out