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ctubbs

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Joined
Sep 12, 2010
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Just to keep up the fun and wondering just why American English is so dastardly hard to learn, here are a few definitions of just one word. Read to the end, may be funny, maybe not. Whatever you do, do not get lost on the way.



Just ONE example of why English is SO difficult to learn . . . . .
Read until the end.....you'll laugh....
This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word
and that word is 'UP.' It is listed in the dictionary as an adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].
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, brighten UP a room, polish UP the
silver, warm
UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old
car.

At other times this little word has real special
meaning. People stir
UP trouble, lineUP 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 UP 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
soaks
UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now ........my time is UP !

Oh....one more thing:
What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?
U P !
Did that one crack you UP?

Don't screw
UP. Send this on to everyone you
look
UP in your address
book..or not...it's
UP to you.

Now
I'll shut
UP

Have a blessed day,
 
If I could come up with more meanings I would. But since I can't come up with more meaning for up, I will ease up and then clam up.
 
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I am one up on you. Try "RUN". We RUN errands. Our computers are RUNNING. Some people RUN their mouth. Men and women RUN off to get married. Our bodies get RUN down. You RUN the bath water. Your luck has RUN out. If you smoke, you RUN the risk of getting cancer. Offices RUN out of supplies. Here's a DOUBLE WHAMMY-Libyan is RUNNING UP gas prices.
 
Don't get going on this

My 30 year old dictionary contains about 325,000 definitions. So this can
be a confusing language considering that most folks have an average of about 3000 or so words in their vocabulary.

I always like things like "Driving on the parkway and parking in the driveway". To make things interesting.

Or, going up north, down south, out west and back east.

or going West to get to the Far East and East to get to both Western and Eastern Europe and South East to get to North Africa.....

With so many definitions we must have about 200,000 or so idiosyncracies.
 
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