Category Archives: Uncategorized

What is the meaning of UP?

Enjoy this. It is yet another example of why people learning English have trouble with the language.  Learning the nuances of English makes it a difficult language. (But then, that’s probably true of many languages.)   

There is a two-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other  word , and that word is :

UP .’  It is listed in the dictionary as being used 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 when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake  UP ?&nbs p;

At a meeting, why does a topic come  UP ? Why do we speak  UP , and why are the officers  UP for election and why is it  UP to the  secretary to write UP a report? We call  UP our friends and we use it to brighten  UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm  UP the leftovers and clean  UP the kitchen.  We lock  UP the house and some guys  fix UP the old car.  At other times the little word has a real special meaning. People stir  UP &  sp ; ;trouble, line  UP for tickets, work  UP an appetite, and think  UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed  UP is special.

And this  up is 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. We seem to be pretty mixed  UP   about  UP

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of  UP , look the word  UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add  UP to about thirty definitions. 

If you are  UP to it, you might try building  UP a 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. 

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding  UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing  UP . When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry  UP .

One could go on & on, but I’ll wrap it  UP , for now  ……..my time is  UP , so time to shut  UP

Oh…one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? 

U P   ___________________________________

Tagus River Panorama - Toledo, Spain - Dec 2006.jpg
Size of this preview: 800 × 328 pixels
Full resolution‎ (5,367 × 2,200 pixels, file size: 4.49 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Do You Know What Is Waiting For You After Your Cross thE White Light