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Tenacious Learner Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Question about 'sold out'

Hi Teachers,

What kind of verb is the underlined one?

All the tickets were sold out.

Thanks in advance
  

Top answer

"sold out" is a phrasal verb that means: to have sold the entire amount of something. com/search/sold%20out

— MalRey

  • "sold out" is a phrasal verb that means: to have sold the entire amount of something.
  • com/search/sold%20out
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7 Answers
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"sold out" is a phrasal verb that means: to have sold the entire amount of something.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/sold%20out
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Hi MalRey,

Thank you so much for your reply. What I don't know here is the verb 'were'?

Does 'were + sold out' make a tense?

TS
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'were' is the auxiliary verb that makes the sentence passive.

We sold out all the tickets. (Active)

All the tickets were sold out. (Passive)

It's the same as

John lifted the packages. (Active)

The packages were lifted. (Passive)

CJ
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Hi Jim,

Thank you so much for the reply.

That's true! In the passive it is not important the doer, the action is, right?

TS
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Right.

(In the passive it's not the actor that's important; it's the action. Right?)

CJ
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Hi Jim,

Thank you for your reply and correction. Yes!Emotion: nodding Right!
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Yes, it's just the passive form of the phrasal verb "sell out", as all explained above.

Just one little thing - the sentence sounds a bit strange because of the tortology. "Sold out" means "all sold", so you don't need to say "all the tickets".

Better to say either "The tickets were sold out" or simply "All the tickets were sold".
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