Off Topic, but interesting

[johnsironsanctuary]

My wife forwarded this.

 

 
 


This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP.' 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 when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?


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, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.


At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UPfor 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 UP 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 soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now . . . my time is UP!

There was no credit given, but this looks like the work of George Carlin except he would add one more. F@#$ UP.
 
 
 

[EVILDR235]

And when we drink too much, we want to UP chuck.

XXXXXX

[Corey]

This made me want to think of a few of my own.

If your kids are not acting well, you tell them to shape UP

If we like a song we turn it UP, but if we don't like it we want to change it UP.

At Christmas we wrap UP gifts but we open UP gifts too

[amertrac]

john, one thing bothers me. your relationship with your wife. e-mails? In over fifty yrs. of marriage I do not beleive we were never in a position not to speak to one another.  Maybe your hoiuse is bigger than I know.   just kidding I k now there is a simple reason I JUST COULD NOT RESIST  BOB W

[FrankLee]

john, one thing bothers me. your relationship with your wife. e-mails? In over fifty yrs. of marriage I do not beleive we were never in a position not to speak to one another.  Maybe your hoiuse is bigger than I know.   just kidding I k now there is a simple reason I JUST COULD NOT RESIST  BOB W

Maybe they broke UP.

[johnsironsanctuary]

Bob,
My wife has an embroidery business that is about a half hour away from the house. She gets all sorts of emails from friends and business people. She forwards mail to me and uses email to supplement my HORRID memory. It's not that we don't talk, it's just a workable method for us.

John

[Branson]

Don't forget UPloading things on your computer while you are up and about, possibly up to no good.

I'm up for explaining the phenomenon, though.  English uses prepositions to create idiomatic verbs, always has.
 
We look at, look up, look for, look around, and sometimes look down on others.  We sit up and sit around as well as sit down.  We drink things down as well as drink them up.  In England, they wake people up by knocking them up.  We can be knocked down, too, and knocked around as well as knocked over.  And bowled over.   We have wash ups and wash outs, things wash over us.   It gets all balled up for people trying to learn English.

[Wrenchmensch]

Let's UP the ante on this discussion.  What if we eliminated prepositions when we speak or write? Try it, and see if your speech and writing are clearer. Prepositional phrasing obscures messages.

[Branson]

If you eliminate prepositions from speech or writing, you won't be able to say much.  Especially if prepositions are eliminated from verbal idioms. 

If you leave out the preposition from "Search for Barbara," you get "Search Barbara."  You will have lost a certain amount of clarity and precision.  Speaking to someone is quite different from speaking of someone.  Quite a gulf between looking up to someone and looking down on someone.  And I wouldn't be certain of Barbara's reaction...

[Wrenchmensch]

The words "Find Barbara, she cannot be located" suffice, don't they?

[rusty]

"Locate Barbara" is more concise.

But prepositions are convenient, they allow us to convert functional verbs into procedural verb phrases, which eases language construction. The argument that you are lazy because you used an easier method of language construction is what you are hinting at.....
But it presumes you can locate alternate procedural verbs for all possible things you would like to specify, which I don't think you can, and trying to restate a procedure as a function and an explanation is not quite equal...

Plus , where would we get such nice colorfully ambiguous expressions like 'speak of the devil..'

[Branson]

The words "Find Barbara, she cannot be located" suffice, don't they?

Actually, it's not quite the same.  One can discover things without searching, but searching for tools, as many of us has found, does not guarantee one will find them.  More concisely, to seek is not necessarily to find.

English prepositions have an unusual relationship with verbs.  Modern English infinitives, uniquely in my experience, are formed by prefixing the root verb with a preposition, to.   Old English infinitives are not so formed.  To whistle is "hwistlian;" to teach is "tachan."

The arrival of the Norman French changed that forever, and is the primary source for the "latinate" words that form around 42% of Modern English.
French also uses verbal idioms with the addition of a preposition: "faire partie de," "arriver à expiration," "avoir besoin de," and that is how they made their way into Middle, and then Modern English.

Around the 18th Century, grammarians began to devise a formal English grammar.  It had none, so they took the well defined grammar of Latin (considered the perfect language) and crammed English into Latin rules rather than examining the English language to discover a grammar.  Out the window went the double negatives that Chaucer used so frequently.  In came the concept of dangling prepositions, because they did not recognize that English consistently modifies verbs by the use of various prepositions. 

To look is modified as to look at, to look for, to look around -- all are related, but in usage, they are different verbs, each more specific, and precise  meaning.

To illustrate the unnecessary complexity of expression when one must not end a sentence with a preposition, Churchill called it "... nonsense up with which I will not put."

[johnsironsanctuary]

Holy Bat Guano, Batman! I've greased a slippery slope with prepositions. Branson, what kind of tools did William The Conqueror provide for his maintenance department before the invasion in 1066? Had the nut and bolt been invented already?  Were wrenches used to tighten them up? 

[Wrenchmensch]

The Roman Army used standardized nuts, bolts, and wrenches to set up their camps and siege engines. They also standardized their personal weaponry, the gladius was a prime example. Evidence of Roman standardization can be found in Eastern PA, in the first German immigrants' wrenches, nuts and bolts which are dimensioned in ancient Roman measurements.

Reference Mercer Museum Ancient Carpenters Tools.

[Branson]

Like Wrenchmensch pointed out, standardized nuts and bolts were already in use by the Romans, and relatively standardized weaponry (the really standardized stuff, meaning interchangeable parts began with the 1803 Harpers Ferry rifles and the 1819 breach-loading Hall rifles).

The bold and screw are only rotary versions of the inclined plane -- think wedges.  I'd have to search further, but my impression of William the Conqueror and his technology, is that most things were accomplished with welds and rivets, or in the case of siege weapons, wedges.  There is no of use of plate armor as seen in the Bayeux Tapestry -- we see hauberks and chain mail. 

There is standardization of patterns -- Normans using the "kite" shields more functional among cavalry.  The big innovation illustrated in the Tapestry is the stirrups on the saddles, which provides a warrior on horse back a platform from which to fight, making the lance a formidable weapon.  Romans didn't have stirrups, and neither did the early Vikings.

Romans had a lot of tools we don't imagine.  Metal planes, for example, and a Roman claw hammer is nearly identical to the common modern claw hammer.