| 词组 | up |
| 释义 | up I 1. As any learner of the language is bound to know, up is in frequent use in English as an idiomatic particle after many verbs. Besides its function in forming such idiomatic verbs as bring up, wind up, and hold up, it serves as a completive and intensive particle in such combinations as burn up, end up, and hurry up, and as a directional particle in such combinations as climb up and rise up. It is the intensive, completive, and directional uses that the commentators turn their attention to, and their conclusion generally is that up is not necessary. Here is a typical voice: • Of course, when up is unnecessary, it belongs nowhere, not even in informal usage. For instance, it is meaningless in "Let's divide up the profits" and in "Anna will make up the bed." It is redundant in end up, finish up, hurry up, join up, and pay up. It does not belong in "His son signed up with the Marines," and it is surplusage in "The minister opened up the sermon with a parable." —Freeman 1983 But let us examine the idea of omitting up from such sentences from the standpoint of what we gain by the omission. If you punch a typewriter or word processor keyboard, you see the gain instantly: two letters and one space saved. And if you are speaking, you will save perhaps a twentieth of a second. The fact of the matter is that the uses of up aspersed by the critics are a deeply rooted part of ordinary, everyday, conversational English. These uses are idiomatic, they are natural, and they are not governed by careful calculations performed in the privacy of the study. And it is useful to remember that the closer your writing is to the natural rhythms of speech, the less likely you are to produce jargon, gibberish, or awkward and stilted prose. You may often omit up, but you certainly do not have to in order to write well: • But the thing comes just in time to counteract some furious attacks at home. All the patriots are stirred up —H. L. Mencken, letter, 20 Dec. 1919 • Never worry because I will always fix things up — Ernest Hemingway, letter, 11 Mar. 1929 • If I had known about that I would have had something ready and would have practiced up before your arrival —E. B. White, letter, 15 Oct. 1964 • The heaviest tractor cultivators may be used for bursting up unploughed land —Fream's Elements of Agriculture, ed. D. H. Robinson, 15th ed., 1975 • ... was out of the house and into the street, where people were starting up cars to go to work —Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist, 1985 We suggest that you let up fall where it naturally will and not become obsessed with revising it away. Freeman 1983 is not alone—the same ideas can be found in Harper 1985, Bryson 1984, Kilpatrick 1984, Scott, Foresman 1981, and others all the way back to Jensen 1935 and MacCracken & Sandison 1917. Bryson is interesting because he contradicts his own advice in the very act of giving it. But in a sentence such as 'He climbed up the ladder', the up does nothing but take up space. 2. One of the grammatical processes identified by modern linguists is called the particle transformation, and it describes the behavior of particles like up in transitive two-word verbs like stick up or hold up. The particle transformation specifies that when the direct object of the verb, say, hold up, is a noun, the particle up can either stay with the verb ("The gunman held up the cashier") or follow the direct object ("The gunman held the cashier up"). When the direct object is a pronoun, the particle regularly follows the direct object ("The gunman held her up"). Another way to state the matter is that when the direct object is a noun the movement is optional, but when it is a pronoun it is obligatory. The particle transformation rule describes actual idiomatic usage quite well. Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988 and Freeman 1983, on the other hand, find the construction awkward in which the particle up follows a noun as direct object (they do not mention pronouns). Freeman even pretends that "The gunman held the cashier up" means that he picked her up and waved her in the air. Note, however, that the sentence can also be understood in that way—with a serious effort—when it is written "The gunman held up the cashier." Of course, it is only possible to make this interpretation because the sentence is removed from context. Taken out of context, the sentence could also be interpreted to mean that the gunman delayed the cashier. You, however, will be writing sentences in context, so the putative ambiguity of "held the cashier up" is unlikely to be a consideration. What you will want to consider is how the sentence sounds; you will not need to exercise your option over the transformation on any other basis. II 1. Up as a verb meaning "raise" or "increase" is considered dubious in writing but acceptable in speech by the Harper 1975, 1985 usage panel; Janis 1984 calls it informal; Copperud 1980 reports that it is treated as standard in two out of three dictionaries. Our evidence shows that it is certainly standard, but not especially formal: • ... to up the number of women on state boards and commissions from 11 to 20 percent —Lorraine Davis, Vogue, March 1984 • ... we have upped the ante on autobiographical revelation —Philip Lopate, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 18 Nov. 1984 • ... other scientists' measurements of seismic events led Gulliver to up the estimated intensity of an earthquake wave in areas with a low water table — Science News, 11 Apr. 1987 2. Some usage books and schoolbooks view the phrase up and with the same distaste they direct at take and, go and, and try and (which see). Up and is no bucolic idiom redolent of our frontier past, however; it is current on both sides of the Atlantic, and is used in general publications, often by writers of more than ordinary sophistication. It, too, is not highly formal. • ... a young woman had upped and offed with the family chauffeur —Dr. James Hemming, Good Housekeeping (London), February 1976 • You up and run away from home —Alan Coren, Punch, 12 Mar. 1975 • ... suddenly upped and won three more major championships —Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 19 Sept. 1983 • ... I think all biographers subconsciously hope their man will up and die, clearing the boards and making everything a whole lot simpler —E. B. White, letter, 20 Sept. 1968 |
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