English usage and grammar

When the object is short (a pronoun or a small phrase), it usually goes between: "cut it short," "cut the trip short." But when the object is longer or has extra modifiers — like "his plans to spend time with his family after years of separation" — English tends to prefer keeping the short word ("short") right after the verb, and pushing the long, heavy noun phrase to the end of the sentence. This is a general tendency in English called "end weight": longer, more complex phrases naturally drift toward the end. So "cut short his plans to spend time with his family after years of separation" reads more smoothly than cramming that whole long phrase between "cut" and "short." One caveat: with a plain pronoun, only one order works — you can only say "cut it short," never "cut short it."