Word Routes
Exploring the pathways of our lexicon
"Man Up" and Other Uplifting Imperatives
My latest On Language column for The New York Times digs into the currently popular words of instruction, "Man up!" How you interpret it has a lot to do with what exactly you think it means to be a man. As I write in the column, it can mean anything from "Don't be a sissy; toughen up" to "Do the right thing; be a mensch." But the up is just as important as the man, since it connects the expression to a family of imperatives of the "X up" variety, many having to do with accepting responsibility for one's actions.
The column focuses on man up and the similar phrase cowboy up, rodeo slang dating to the 1970s. But consider some of these other upwardly mobile exhortations from past decades:
- wake up and smell the coffee: The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as "to be realistic or aware; to abandon a naive or foolish notion." Though the earliest known example dates to 1943, the American advice columnist Ann Landers (as Esther Pauline Friedman was known) was most responsible for popularizing it beginning in the 1950s.
- step up to the plate: Not surprisingly, this phrase has its origins in baseball. As Paul Dickson, author of Dickson Baseball Dictionary, told us last year, baseball became a rich source for metaphors in the speech and writing of early twentieth-century Americans. This expression (defined by the OED as "to take action in response to an opportunity, crisis, or challenge; to take responsibility for something") is no different. A
1919 example from the Washington Post transfers the baseball usage to the theatrical world: "When William Harris, who produced the play, recently reached the conclusion that it was a failure, Mr. Shipman stepped up to the plate with a suggestion that he continue the run of the stage story 'on his own.'"
- put up or shut up: This request for someone to match words with action resembles other blunt Americanisms such as put your money where your mouth is. It goes all the way back to the mid-19th century, as in this 1858 citation from the Marysville (Ohio) Tribune: "Now, if he means business, let him put up, or shut up, for this is the last communication that will come from me in regard to this fellow." Mark Twain also used it in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: "This was a plain case of 'put up, or shut up.'" (An earthier version, nut up or shut up, appeared as the tagline for last year's movie Zombieland.)
- straighten up and fly right: The first part, straighten up, has had an extended meaning of "be honest; stay on the level," since the early twentieth century. But the full version owes its popularity to the 1944 Nat King Cole hit of that name. Though Cole shares writing credit for the song with Irving Mills, the story goes that Cole came up with the idea from a sermon he had heard in his father's church, in which "a buzzard took a monkey for a ride in the air." A memorable scene in the movie The Right Stuff has the soon-to-be astronaut John Glenn, a straight arrow if ever there was one, correctly identifying the song on the game show, "Name That Tune."
- stand up and be counted: This imperative demands that a person "display one's conviction or sympathy, esp. when this requires courage," as the OED has it. It originates in American political usage, dating back to 1904. "Standing up" for one's convictions is a popular metaphor in other varieties of English, as in Bob Marley's advice to fellow Jamaicans, "Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!"
And there are many more where that came from in the annals of U.S. usage. Even a simple phrasal verb like grow up has been given a particularly American spin. As an imperative meaning "be sensible or mature," it shows up in J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caulfield's pimply dorm-mate Ackley says, "For Chrissake, grow up." Of course, it's not simply Americans who call on others to face up to something, own up to something, or stick up for something. But the country has definitely generated more than its share of idioms that ask for a show of courage or responsibility. Man up continues this tradition, adding a touch of modern-day virility.
Know of any other upstanding members of the "X up" family? Let us know in the comments below!
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Comments from our users:
On one website ( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/brushup) I found “brushup” defined as a “practice intended to polish performance or refresh the memory” and on another site ( http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/brush+up.html) I found “brush up” defined as “improve a skill quickly”.
On a third site ( http://www.advanced-english-grammar.com/phrasal-verbs.html)
only “brush up” appears (as it is not concerned with nouns) and is defined as “improve your knowledge and skill”. It seems to me that their difference is defined by the speed of improvement, if we consider their definition on the first two web sites (which means that there is a change of meaning when a transition is made from its form as a noun to its form as a verb and vice versa). However, on the second and the third websites “brush up” is defined differently, as the third website does not include “quickly” in its definition of “brush up”.
My Oxford Dictionary defines brush up (it does not have “brushup”, as I said) as a “study or practice something in order to get back a skill that was lost”.
So I am curious to know, if it is known, why in its transition from noun to verb “brush up” changes its meaning (and why, if that might be the case, we find different definitions for the same expression, instead of being told that the expression can have different meanings and find them all together, consistently, no matter the source). Very interesting article indeed and perhaps I should have not said it twice, as it must be obvious by now that I found it so.
'Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me'" (Job 38:1-3, NIV).
Perhaps a Hebrew scholar can tell me whether Job is, in fact, the first person ever told to "man up."
Joking aside, the phrase "man up" strikes me as a needlessly antifeminist way to exhort someone to have courage.
~ML
Lawyer up: get represented by a lawyer
Pump up: get muscled up
Muscle up: lift weights and build muscle tissue
Conjure up: think up an idea
Think up: mental image/thought
I could phrase up all day and still come to an end.
By the way, I said 'his' actions because I can't really feel any female included in that phrase. But then we have "You GO, girl!" and that's one strong idiom.
Women have been swallowing the gender difference in idioms for a very long time. But when have you heard a man proudly use a female-type idiom - like 'Go girl, go!' referring to himself or a friend of his? The conversation always stops and guys glance and one another and sigh when it is brought up that women are supposed to be flattered by being told they behave like a man and men are made unhappy at at being told they behave like a woman. Thus men's names slide easily over to women, but you know what happened to "A man named Sue".
Now it's time to call me strident. Thank y'all SO much.
We've not be recognized as liberated for very long and are therefore very conscious of gender related words, at least here in NA.
It's not that being the gentler sex is insulting, or something to be ashamed of, it's that we struggle to be recognized in many workplaces as being as capable as a man at that particular job.
Men don't have that problem. It's assumed that if you are there, you are qualified. I'm thinking now of the struggle women have had to get a foothold in business and politics, at the top spots, at least.
So be a bit generous toward us, please, in our search for adequate gender identifications. (Giggle)
I am more than generous toward "the gentler sex".
It's just that when you have been deceived by some misguided "feminists" to do your thinking for you...telling you what to wear, what men all think and want, the significance of dress and bras...etc., then I grow impatient with the glorious creatures called "women" and those who believe their particular belief system is the only "right" one.
Am I clear?
There is much dishonest thinking that serves a man's agenda, and the girls buy it!
No one can ever be the "property" of another except for ignorance, apostasy, anarchy, mental illness, slavery, and so forth.
I was part of the age responsible for getting more lenient hours in dormitories for us, and part of those responsible for getting relieved of our domineering deal of women!
I don't follow trends, and never have been one to do so, ever since I disobeyed my uncle and left his yard to cross 7 Mile Highway in Detroit to talk the soda clerk in a drug store out of an ice cream cone. I was three.
Crossed many risky streets since then, but managed to stay within the law. Maybe it WAS that spanking I got for leaving the yard, but I've remained, despite that, a GDI and a wee bit of a conservative rebel.
Sigh!
I'm glad you agree with me and I with you!
For me, it was the 9-mile and Woodward crossing as we walked to Coolidge Junior High (7&8 Grades) in 1942 and on snowy winter days grabbed a ride on the bumper of a car at a stop sign. Streets were allowed to become icy then!
As for crossing dangerous streets since then, I just have to thank God I'm still alive and kicking!
Sympathetic sigh as well!
depending to which generation you belong, one's opinion regarding the trajectory of Western Culture in the USA now, as compared to mid-Twentieth Century, is anything but desirable.
An aggregate sample of today’s society would be disappointingly rife with vulgarity, sexual license, profane speech, dishonesty, exploitation, insensitivity in matters of race, gender, nationality, possessions, status, dreams, and much more such ugliness.
It’s not only gender! We need a broader view of our struggles and perceptions.
Could we have a column dealing with some of these: absquatulation, busficate, argufy I've run across. Also aggravate is given as one which I do not understand. I didn't think it was a regional word.
This is the quote from a dictionary site: Another such coinage is Northern busticate, which joins bust with -icate by analogy with verbs like medicate. Southern argufy joins argue to a redundant -fy, "to make; cause to become." Today, these creations have an old-fashioned and rustic flavor curiously at odds with their elegance. They are kept alive in regions of the United States where change is slow. For example, Appalachian speech is characterized by the frequent use of words such as recollect, aggravate, and oblige.
Those last three strike me as common usage. Perhaps it is how used in Applachia, or perhaps I was raised too close to there! LOL