“Get-Up” for an Odd Outfit

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lynn Thomas.

I’m calling from Grapevine, Texas.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you, Lynn?

Well, I grew up in the Midwest, mostly Illinois, and I remember if I dressed myself when I was younger, my mom or dad might say to me, that’s quite a getup, or where did you get that getup? And I knew that this was not a compliment. It was something about what I was wearing looked a little strange or funny. And I couldn’t see any connection between the words get up and close. So I was just wondering where that might have come from.

So it was always something outlandish or didn’t match or most normal people wouldn’t wear outside the house.

Exactly. Maybe wearing shorts with boots or some kind of costume or something.

Yeah, the kind of thing a kid would love to wear because it’s showy and expressive and, you know, they’re not bound by the normal rules, right?

Exactly.

Not altogether that embarrassed like an adult would be.

Yes, they’re a little free-for-all.

You know, it’s actually fairly simple. Originally, starting in the late 1700s, you could get up as a verb, a person or a room or a theatrical production in a certain way. You were dressing them or arranging them or decorating them, dressing them in finery, putting up silks or elaborate paper or anything just to make them wonderful and lovely and gorgeous.

And then by the mid-1800s, the noun form of get up appeared to refer to the arrangement or the appearance itself. And then later, much later, the kind of simplified, almost neutered version that we have now, meaning just a kind of gaudy outfit appeared.

So, and that’s it.

So we went from something very elaborate, like a fantastic theatrical design to just a kid wearing, you know, snow boots and a swimming suit.

I like the swimming suit.

I used to say it to my daughters as well. They’re in their 40s, but they clearly remember me saying it to them, and I’m sure it was along the lines that you’re talking about.

You’re going out in that?

Yeah, exactly.

You just kind of knew it was something strange or funny you were wearing, and it was a good idea to maybe change, but I don’t remember being told that I had to change. But you kind of knew, maybe I better not go out in this.

Yeah, somewhere in the middle before we got to kind of what you’re talking about, where the get-up is a really kind of gaudy or mismatched outfit is the idea of a get-up being a complicated outfit, something involving a lot of layers or a lot of straps.

Or just think about some of the women’s outfits in the 1700s and 1800s where there’s skirts and petticoats and silks and corsets and booted that and all that sort of thing.

So that’s a get up where it’s just, you know, two hours to get dressed.

You have to get up a couple hours early, right?

Get up to put on the get up.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about when it was used as a verb in the 1700s.

Yeah.

It was somebody dressing somebody else.

Yeah, somebody dressing somebody else.

But it wasn’t even just people. It was about hair. You might get up someone’s hair. You might get up someone’s appearance. You might have your maid get up your outfit for you, but you might also get up a theater to decorate it for a performance or to put on the scenery or to put up the curtains and the stage setting in the right way.

You might get up a book to produce it so that you are putting the plates together and putting the images together and all that sort of stuff.

Well, I never dreamed it went back that far.

Lynn, thanks so much for calling.

You are very welcome.

I enjoyed talking with you and I love your show.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Lynn.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.