Up and Quit

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, this is Scott. I’ve talked to you before, and I’ve got another good question for you.

Oh, yes, please.

Bring it on, Scott.

I can recall when I was a middle manager, my boss came to me and asked me if I would discipline an employee on my staff.

And he told me, I don’t care if she just up and quits.

And I hear this used a lot, this usage of up.

But where does that come from?

Why don’t we down and quit?

Or just quit?

Right.

Why do we have to up and do things?

There’s an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary that dates back to the 1300s.

It has uses of this.

It indicates that at one point, you would use up and followed by an action to indicate that you suddenly literally rose from your seat and started to do something.

So in the morning we up and went, something like that.

I up and plotted on again.

So you stood up.

You literally got up physically.

And then, as we tend to do in English, it became a little less literal and a little more figurative.

And by the 1500s, you could use up and say something.

So I was sitting there with my mouth closed, and she kept going on and on about what a terrible meal this was.

And so I just up and told her to clam up, right?

That means I got up my gumption, or I got up my will, or I got up my motivation, and then I said the thing that needed to be saying.

So it’s a little more intense than just saying?

And it tends to be paired in the way that they’ve done it in the Oxford English Dictionary with a verb of speaking.

And it’s interesting that you use this quit action because I love this idea that it requires a verbal expression.

It requires some kind of emission of sound or words in order to do this.

But the thing is, where we have the modern use of up and a verb, they’ve got another entry, and this is a different part of the dictionary, to start up, come forward, to begin abruptly or boldly.

And it so perfectly fits what you’re talking about.

If we up and do something in modern English, we are doing it with a kind of vigor or enthusiasm or sudden energy.

Yeah, well, I’ve heard up and died.

Yeah.

He just up and died.

Right, which was like 10 minutes ago he was fine and then he was dead.

Yeah.

It’s more like down and died.

If somebody up and quits, it meant there wasn’t a lot of hand-rigging.

There was not a lot of discussion.

They just said, all right, I’m out of here.

So originally to up and quit, she would have to stand up from her chair and then quit.

But now it’s just figurative, and she could stay sitting down and quit.

Chair, rock.

And the reason I said there’s kind of a story here is it’s difficult to prove that each one of these things led to the other,

But the historical record dates them in almost the perfect order.

So we can assume that there’s some kind of influence or, as I like to say, cross-pollination,

And that each one naturally flowed into the other over the centuries.

Very interesting.

It’s the suddenness that I like, the boldness.

You quickly are doing something.

You know, if you’re slow or requires a lot of contemplation, you’re not up and doing anything.

Then you would be down.

Exactly.

So up is fast and down is slow.

Got it.

Scott, thanks for calling.

Thank you so much.

Enjoy your show.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

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