“UP”

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this: How do non-natives ever learn all the nuances of English?

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is “UP.”

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

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for 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 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 wets UP the earth. When it doesn’t rain for a while, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so … Time to shut UP!

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A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take pictures of a great forest fire. He was advised that a small plane would be waiting to fly him over the fire.

The photographer arrived at the airstrip just an hour before sundown. Sure enough, a small Cessna airplane was waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, “Let’s go!”

The tense man sitting in the pilot’s seat swung the plane into the wind and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically.

“Fly over the north side of the fire,” said the photographer, “and make several low-level passes.”

“Why?” asked the nervous pilot.

“Because I’m going to take pictures!” yelled the photographer. “I’m a photographer, and photographers take pictures.”

After a long pause, the “pilot” replied: “You mean, you’re not my instructor?”

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When I was a child, I remember my Mom telling me, “Son, when you grow up, you can marry any girl you please.”

When I became a young man, I learned the sad fact was that I could not please any of them.

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Two old guys, Abe and Sol, are sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons and talking about baseball, like they do every day.

Abe turns to Sol and says, “Do you think there’s baseball in heaven?”

Sol thinks about it for a minute and replies, “I dunno. But let’s make a deal: if I die first, I’ll come back and tell you if there’s baseball in heaven, and if you die first, you do the same.”

They shake on it and sadly, a few months later, poor Abe passes on.

One day soon afterward, Sol is sitting there feeding the pigeons by himself when he hears a voice whisper, “Sol … Sol …”

Sol responds, “Abe! Is that you?”

“Yes, it is, Sol,” whispers Abe’s ghost.

Sol, still amazed, asks, “So, is there baseball in heaven?”

“Well,” says Abe, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Gimme the good news first,” says Sol.

Abe says, “Well… there is baseball in heaven.”

Sol says, “That’s great! What news could be bad enough to ruin that!?”

Abe sighs and whispers, “You’re pitching on Friday.”

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A college student challenged a senior citizen, saying it was impossible for their generation to understand his. “You grew up in a different world,” the student said. “Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers.”

Taking advantage of a pause in the student’s litany, the geezer said, “You’re right. We didn’t have those things when we were young; so we invented them! What are you doing for the next generation??”

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