Published: November 06, 2009 07:20 pm      

The over-under on ups and downs

EDMOND — Up, down, over, under. ... You can say what you want to say with the help of words like those, but choose them carefully. It’s possible to shut up or shut down without much trouble, but those little words don’t always work so well: i.e., you can also wake up, but you can’t wake down.

It’s a wonder anyone ever learns the English language. Take the words “up” and “down,” for instance. It’s okay to shake up a dull party, but you’d best leave a shakedown to the law. And while you might bring down the house with your humor, don’t be bringing up delicate subjects for a laugh. Not in polite company anyway. If that’s a hard pill to swallow down, think how disgusting swallowing it up would be.

Anyone can have a hoedown if there’s a fiddle and someone to play it, but you can’t have a hoe up unless you’ve come to the end of the row, and almost no one chops cotton anymore.

You can end a sentence with “down” and nobody will raise an eyebrow, but end it with “up” and the bluebloods will register pain. A well phrased proposition, maybe, but a concluding preposition, never! That’s a linguistic faux pas up with which they will not put.

You men can dress up — in which case you add a tie — or you can dress down — in which case you wear white sox. It’s different with women. We dress up to please other women and down — sometimes way down — to please men.

“Bottoms up” follows a toast at the bar, and “bottoms down” is the position one assumes when bullets fly overhead. Try to avoid the latter. “Stick ’em up” is what a thug tells you to do with your hands, and “Stick it down” is what you tell your barber to do with the cowlick at the crown of your head.

“Suck it up” is what you say to a complainer, and suck it down is how you eat a raw oyster. If your engine freezes up and it’s not likely to thaw out before you-know-what freezes over, hunker down and hope the parts come in while you’re still under warranty.

In addition to “up” and “down,” there’s the equally mixed bag of “overs” and “unders.” You can be down with a fever (heaven forbid), but you really shouldn’t be up with one. You might say you’re under the weather when you’re feeling down, but you won’t be over the weather until it stops raining.

A birthday might put you over the hill, but that’s preferable to being under it, a condition that’s apt to last. Not that old age or something as lethal won’t eventually overtake you, but you’ll leave everything after that to the — you guessed it — undertaker.

Underhanded politicians make shady deals, as opposed to over handed politicians who don’t, but you never hear the latter described that way because they’re rare.

Lacey Underalls are what discerning lady mechanics would wear beneath their overalls if there were such a thing, but I very much digress.

You can’t get under a bad relationship, but it’s possible to get over one after awhile, depending on how much you overestimate the importance of the jerk and how much you underestimate your own worth.

A fluffy pillow is comfy under your head, but you’d best avoid situations that are over your head, which is what I failed to do here, but what fun!

Thumbs up is good and thumbs down is bad. Overachieving earns A-plus, and underachieving sometimes sees print.



MARJORIE ANDERSON is an Edmond resident.