Wiregrass Seniors Magazine September 2016 1111 | Page 8

Page 8

WiregrassSeniorsMagazine.com

English Is Weird!
An article on this showed UP in my email inbox this
week, and I thought I’d share it with you. While I didn't
dream it UP, I found out, after looking it UP on the
web, that the article's content might originally come
from here. I enjoyed reading UP on it, and I made UP
the parallel between the uses of the word and
localization. (It gets worse from here).
UP can be a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and
preposition. This two-letter word in English has more
meanings than any other two-letter word. If you were
to check, it is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep],
[adj], [n] or [v].
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky
or at the top of the list, but consider these things.
At a meeting, topics come UP. People speak UP
before being told to hush UP and that causes a dust
UP, but that is problem for someone else to mop UP.
Since I plan on moving up, I will need to toughen UP,
and make sure I never give UP. Because the way is
UP, as long as I grow UP, keep UP, and lift UP my
fellow man.
Politicians are UP for re-election and it is UP to the
secretary to write UP a report. We call UP our friends.
We take UP with the wrong crowd. You can brighten
UP a room. We polish UP the silverware. I warm UP
the leftovers and then I clean UP the kitchen. We lock
UP the house. Fix UP the old car. My sister always
stirs UP trouble. We line UP for tickets and Work UP
an appetite and sometimes think UP excuses.
At other times, this little word gives a concept some
special meaning: To be dressed is one thing but to
be dressed UP is special.
And some uses of UP are confusing: A drain must
be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open
UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
If you are UP to it, you might try coming UP with your
own list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP
a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may
wind UP with a hundred or more, but thats UP to you.
I guess I'll wrap it UP, since my time is UP.