Adventures in Up

Listen up, and let me tell you about the drunken cowboy that was shootin' up the saloon. The sheriff ran up the street to see what was up. “Alright! Hands up!” The sheriff yelled. The yellow-bellied cowpoke gave up. The sheriff tied him up, then locked him up. Then he sidled up to the bar and invited everybody to drink up.

The word up has more meanings than any other two-letter word. Look up the word up in a dictionary. You’ll see that up takes up a half a page and adds up to about thirty definitions. The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary has 316 entries for up.

It's easy to understand up, meaning above or toward the sky, but in the morning, how is it that we wake up? And then get up?

At the office a topic comes up. The administrative assistant writes up a report. And then someone speaks up. At church I lift up my voice and lift up my hands. And I hold up my brethren in prayer.

And what’s up with this? The umpire yells, “Batter up!”, but the chef says, “Stir up the batter.”

We call up our friends, brighten up a room, hang up our clothes. We warm up leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and we tune up the car. People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses.

To get dressed is one thing but to get dressed up is special. Why are politicians up for election? What worse? To be up a creek or to get sent up the river? When I was a kid, my older brother locked me up in a closet and then hollered at me to shut up about it.

I’m so confused. Just this morning I opened up a drain because it was clogged up. And last month I put up the Christmas tree. After Christmas I put up the decorations. And what’s this? They open up stores in the morning, and close them up at night.

I suggest that you try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It might take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up, you may end up with a hundred or more.

I could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up.

If you feel up to it, scroll back up to the top of the page and count up the number of ups on this page. And don't overlook the title up there. Write up your answer in the Cuss-Free Zone.