Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <word-usage><sentence-meaning>
Title: Help to understand the usage of "after" in "Nothing you need to get a chain saw after yet"
Question: Wareheim said so far the wind has only knocked down branches and limbs small enough to be carried. "Nothing you need to get a chain saw  after  yet," he said by phone.   As I understand, the sentence is saying that:  Nothing you need to get a chain saw  after the hurricane is gone  yet .  But I'm not sure if my understanding is correct?  The  full source .

Answers:
sents: text: To me, this seems like an unusual usage of phrasal verb get after :
text: get after 2.
text: To pursue something that is a problem or menace: If you don't get after those termites, your house will be destroyed.
text: (TFD) You get after [someone/something] (with something) .
text: Wareheim's usage strikes me as a (US) Southernism, and the article does state that the man has a home in North Carolina.
text: The usual construction would be Nothing you need to get after with a chainsaw yet.
text: (complete sentence) &rightarrow; [There is] nothing you need to get after with a chainsaw yet.
text: In other words, there is nothing yet that needs to be handled, cleared, or destroyed with a chainsaw.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/36187/Em.
score: 38
sents: text: So far [ yet , before some more severe destruction] there's nothing to go [get] after with a chain saw.
text: P. S.
text: Anyway, after points here at the source of trouble needing a chain saw to be applied.
text: Go after means 'to try to find' (e.g. to go after gold), to aim at something needing application of that instrument here.
text: As the other answer shows, the original get after expression has an even more direct meaning addressing something troublesome (with that instrument here).
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/81024/Alex_ander
score: 9
sents: text: Another way of wording that sentence: So far there has been nothing that needed a chainsaw used on it before it could be removed.
text: After is being used in the sense of “applied to”.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/6361/jmoreno
score: 4
sents: text: We can get after something that needs tending or requires our action.
text: That is, we see that the thing gets done.
text: We tend to the matter.
text: I need to get after the backed-up laundry now that the washing machine has been repaired.
text: We can also get someone after something:
text: We need to get the dog-catcher after these packs of stray dogs.
text: And, in an extended, somewhat joking sense, we can get something after something:
text: I need to get the rake after those dead leaves.
text: That is, I need to rake those leaves.
text: The rake, being an inanimate object, cannot be given an assignment or a task to complete as the dog-catcher can.
text: And we can get after something with something.
text: You need to get after those tall weeds with a sickle.
text: A lawn mower won't do.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/10264/Tᴚoɯɐuo
score: 2
sents: text: I think it looks like an unusual usage of the word after .
text: It looks like it could simply be substituted with a for .
text: Nothing you need to get a chainsaw for yet.
text: In other words:After the winds as of yet, theres nothing you can't take care of without a chainsaw.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/82276/svin83
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
"Nothing you need to  get after  with a chainsaw  yet" would mean that there is nothing yet that needs to be handled, cleared, or destroyed with a chainsaw.
This is an unusual usaage of the verb 'get after', which in this case means to apply to. You can get after a thing or person with something, so the sentence means that a chainsaw was not necessary to remove the small branches.