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#25513 04/02/01 02:40 PM
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stick up, as in armed robbery. And, while I was typing this, another occurred to me: up yours. Also, mentioned above, shut up.

Negative connotations, yes, but all three have distinctly positive (ie, in these cases, upward components), do they not?

a stick up is merely short for "stick your hands up in the air (NB: If you should try this at home, it would behoove you to use bank-appropriate stationery see related thread)

up yours i shall politely decline to elaborate, but it believe it's clear that unless the recipient is practicing some sort of inverted meditation this suggestion would quite assuredly be decriptive of an upward motion.

shut up is a bit more nebulous, but one could easily argue that this imperative is short for "shut up your mouth", and considering our physiology which forces us to raise up our lower jaw in order to meet our upper jaw, compliance would indeed involve--necessitate, even--an upward motion.

bridget, anticipating the collective rolling of eyes, obligingly shuts up, muttering 'nihil est incertius vulgo'



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another phrase? Other than flatliner?

Certainly that's what I mean when I use it as a patronizing and contemptuous term. It matches so nicely with Threadnodist.


#25515 04/02/01 02:53 PM
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a plea, from Jo's excellent hints:It can be helpful if people quote a little of the post that they are replying to, to help flat-moders find out what is going on. As a staunch flatliner, I endorse that suggestion enthusiastically

I will endeavour to comply if those who are posting will also Reply to the post that they are replying to.


#25516 04/02/01 02:56 PM
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#25517 04/02/01 02:57 PM
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put up
There is a usage, now somewhat archaic I suspect since my grandmother used it: put up in another sense of putting away, viz., in jars or cans (tins), as in, "I put up 50 quarts of peaches this year."

Warning: non-word addition coming: that brings back to mind the peaches she did put up. Beautiful perfect golden halves in large mason jars. And what a flavor!! In the midst of winter, you could enjoy their fantastic flavor and delicate sweetness. She had two secrets which made her peaches unrivalled: she included some of the stones in the jar, and she used some brown sugar in the syrup.


#25518 04/02/01 09:51 PM
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I will endeavour to comply if those who are posting will also Reply to the post that they are replying to

Okay, I've been watching for an opportune moment to bring this up. I have never made sure that I always click the Reply icon for the post I'm responding to. Two reasons:
first, it was months before I realized that there was an option to be notified that there is a reply to your post, and that some people might actually be using this. (I wouldn't--I prefer being pleasantly surprised.) So, I would always just click the Reply icon on whatever the last post in the thread was, and quote from whichever post I was actually responding to, no matter that it may have been on another page.
Since my realization that I may have been doing some leading down the garden path, I have been conscientious about clicking on the actual post's Reply icon, but---
sometimes there isn't a particular post that I am posting a response to, and so--I still just click whatever the last post in the thread is. I apologize if I have inadvertantly gotten peoples' hopes up.


#25519 04/03/01 11:29 AM
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Lady High Pooh-Bah saith: inadvertantly gotten peoples' hopes up

Is this another 'word' up? And what does it mean to get your hopes up? And are you sure you aren't doing this advertantly?

Yours in subjugate humility

the sunshine (bowing and backing out of the room) warrior


#25520 04/03/01 12:48 PM
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, i'm wondering if there's a usage of 'up' that doesn't follow this general pattern
An American friend of mine used to remark, when I came home from work, "you are so uptight again", meaning irritable. "messed up", "hung up" and "tied up" don't sound very optimistic to me.
Otherwise I think, "up" has very often simply kind of a reinforcing role in connection with a verb.


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Thank you, Jackie. I have occasionally been responding to more than one post, but when doing so I have tried to decide which post was more influential in making me post in the first place, respond to that post and at least copy and paste a relevant bit from any other post I may be alluding to (unless it is a whole thread of posts from some other day). From a threadnodist's point of view the individual sub threads are easy to follow just from the organization on the page. This leads to our failure to understand how a flatliner could easily follow a subthread when the subject line changes (as it so often will). This is what I was referring to in the Silly comic quizz subthread, particularly when you get something like AnnaS's (a notorious flatliner and Mac sufferer) when I questioned how flatliners would be able to follow such a subthread. Well, Ms Strophic has said that she follows just fine, so I suppose I shall have to trust her and ignore the nagging doubts in my mind. But, to humor us poor benighted threadnodists, please try to keep things where they belong.


#25522 04/03/01 12:55 PM
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An American friend of mine used to remark, when I came home from work, "you are so uptight again", meaning irritable. Otherwise I think, "up" has very often simply kind of a reinforcing role in connection with a verb.

Hint of a possible reason for this difference:

The opposite of "uptight" is "hang loose" which refers to the sometimes less frequent state of male anatomy. (again, without prejudice)


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