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#25493 03/31/01 01:20 AM
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"Up" gets into some idioms that are hard to explain. For instance "I won't put up with that."

This calls to mind that when something--a jar, or a notebook, maybe--is put up, that carries the connotation that it is shut away, behind a closed door perhaps, and won't be brought out into the open in the immediate future.
So maybe when someone says they won't put up with that, they
mean that they DO intend to bring it out into the open, and soon.

And that reminds me of 'put up or shut up'.


#25494 03/31/01 03:36 AM
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How about "Let's wind up this meeting" and "The meeting was winding down"? Wind it up or wind it down, it's still gonna be over soon.


#25495 03/31/01 03:57 AM
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the more i see the examples offered forth in this thread, the more it seems that "UP" is simply an indicator of anything on the "positive" side of the spectrum; ie -depending, of course, on context - more (speed up, add up), attainment of a goal of sorts (wrap up, finish up, follow up), putting forth (pipe up, cough up, throw up), compliance with an imperative or expectation (shut up, ante up),front or pinnacle (head up, lead up), the state of being contemporary or current (whasssssssssssup, coming up) and even more intangibly indicating a definitive action (used up, broke up).

that being said, i'm wondering if there's a usage of 'up' that doesn't follow this general pattern (or have i simply forced a pattern where one does not exist? it seems clear in *my* mind, but that's not necessarily saying much)

can someone come up with a better explanation?

[wondering-if-tsuwm-would-mind-lending-me-his-ron-obvious-tag-e]

#25496 03/31/01 10:58 AM
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Sometimes it seems like the shorter the word, the longer the dictionary entry.

>do any of you OEDers have a way to search for the *longest* dictionary entry? anyone want to hazard a guess?


Somewhere out there, there is a whole dictionary which is devoted to the one word in the English language which has no letters at all. You know, the one which everyone has trouble spelling?






The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#25497 03/31/01 12:30 PM
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And has anybody ever 'buttoned up' an overcoat or indeed any item of clothing?


#25498 03/31/01 12:51 PM
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<<the word with no letters at all>>

And the page it graces is the one much poetry would approach and can only approximate--the poem delineating the silence, much as landscape does the white space in certain Asian art.


#25499 03/31/01 01:43 PM
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This page left blank on purpose



#25500 03/31/01 03:05 PM
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I always button up my overcoat from the bottom-up!

If one lifts their beer up high as they take a swig, one effectively matches the literal "bottoms-up"... but will this always be based on ones relation to gravity?


#25501 03/31/01 04:42 PM
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I really hate to "bring this UP" and, in fact, rather expected that, by now, someone else (e.g. "____" or "______" or even "_______" would have done. However, that hasn't happened, and therefore, since AWADers prefer to treat a subject fully, I will do so myself, as discreetly as the circumstances permit. Perhaps it will suffice if I mention that cult, - not farmers - who have a culture, almost religious in nature, (e.g. fertility rites) sometimes called "Viagraculture", its priests and priestesses being called "Viagraculturalists." Don't you just love their heartwarming commercials? Carry on, lads.


#25502 03/31/01 05:47 PM
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up has seven(7) entries [headwords] in the OED: 1 noun (7 senses), 1 verb (8 senses), 1 adj (6), 2 adv (33, 21), 2 prep (10, 7); for a total of 92 senses. I will not paste it all up.

{up the revolution.}

---

what's up with the comic quiz? I am not the owl. I am either eeyore or daffy duck.

---

rhyme parody up:

I think that I shall never hear
a poem as lovely as a beer
...
for poems are writ by fools I fear
and only Schlitz can make a beer
-Alfred E. Neuman

---
[nod to ASp for all-in-one® postaday™]


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