Posted on 02/24/2018 9:45:32 AM PST by V K Lee
English is weird, hard to learn, and often hard to translate.
An article on this showed UP in my email inbox this week, and I thought I’d share it with you. While I didn't dream it UP, I found out, after looking it UP on the web, that the article's content might originally come from here. I enjoyed reading UP on it, and I made UP the parallel between the uses of the word and localization. (It gets worse from here).
UP can be a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition. This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word. If you were to check, 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 consider these things.
We wake UP
At a meeting, topics come UP
People speak UP It is UP to the secretary to write UP a report
We call UP our friends
We take UP with the wrong crowd
You can brighten UP a room
We polish UP the silverware
I warm UP the leftovers and then I clean UP the kitchen
We lock UP the house
People fix UP the old car
My sister always stirs UP trouble
We line UP for tickets
She works UP an appetite
You think UP excuses
(Excerpt) Read more at info.moravia.com ...
What's UP?
That’s F’d UP...................
Funny movie
Something’s up. Don’t let in any more Muslims or Mexicans until they learn how to use the word “up” properly.
Luke 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
What the hell are you UP to, posting this?
Perdue has banned the word “man.” Actually, they’ve banned any word containing those letters such as “mailman”, “human”, “Manchester”, etc. One snowflake said Manchester should change it’s name.
Loved it
Squirrel!
Uh-oh. What about “Saruman”?
Great! At least we won’t have to listen to them bitchin about mansplaining.
That’s F’d UP...................
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Did anyone know that
F ornicate
U nder
A uthority
of the
K ing
only
That was a very unpopular Royal Proclimation.
I Royally F’s that up. It was actually
F ornicate
U nder
C onsent
of the
K ing
"You have to get down so I can get up."
Of course she did have to actually get down so I could actually stand up. But I might have been thinking that I should stand down for some reason even though I was standing up. :-)
Other languages have similar oddities to express the same concept, acabar de, for example. But what must be the most difficult thing for a non-English speaker to learn is how different the language is spoken as apart from its written form. Not only are many of the letters never pronounced, when they are, they usually come out far different, and without any consistency. Take “I can” for example. It’s universally pronounced Ikin, as if it were all one word and with a sort “i” in place of an “a”. Go figure.
Bet your cat had to get up to get down.
'Manchester' will from now on, cease to exist! It will now be known as the 'City With No Name'. 😂
You’re UP to no good!
That’s nothing. See 25 words that are their own opposites:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their-own-opposites
That’s pretty funny, but I believe Gallagher already approached the topic.
Only in each of those samples above, the word UP is wrong. Shouldn’t be there.
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