It all started with Lucienne Forrest, a French woman I met on the island of Skopelos in Greece.
She was in the water and shouted out to me, “Come in the water and get fresh!”
I replied, “The expression is freshen up.”
She retorted, “Freshen up; cool down. You English people don’t know what direction you’re going in.”
This got me thinking. Why do we freshen up? Why don’t we just freshen? Why do we put a direction to some of our actions? Then I started thinking of other expressions that use the words up and down without any obvious purpose.
Screwing something up and screwing it down are two entirely different things. Same goes with shut up and shut down. Ditto for dress up and dress down.
You ask people listen up, lighten up and loosen up. Afterwards they can talk it up.
A husband and wife can really mess things up. Afterwards they can calm down and kiss and make up.
You can do a bang up job even when you are hard up, which makes you feel down.
Why do you divide things up? I thought dividing things made them smaller.
When you imagine something, why is it made up?
Why do you have to put up with somebody and if you are really upset with them, put them down?
I’m sure that there are reasons for all of these, but I just haven’t got the low-down on any of them. I give up!
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