*Lovers of the English language might enjoy this...How do non-natives

ever learn all the nuances of English???

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other

two-letter word, and that word is "UP."

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 and we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the

silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the

house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir

up trouble, line UP for tickets, workup 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 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 wets UP the earth.

When it doesn't! rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so....

Time to shut UP...

Oh...one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at

night?

You get UP!

Don't screw up. Send this on to everyone you look UP in your address book. *

"Up Yours" is the first one I learned for some strange reason.H.

When I was younger (and with some, even now), the first thing we always wanted to know was how to curse or insult someone in whichever language we were exploring... I suppose it was that adolescent desire for anything repulsive or rebellious

kristoff wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2006 7:43 pm When I was younger (and with some, even now), the first thing we always wanted to know was how to curse or insult someone in whichever language we were exploring... I suppose it was that adolescent desire for anything repulsive or rebellious

Kristoff, it doesn't change with age. When I lived in Paris this summer, the first thing I did was buy the book on French Slang and Vulgarity. Came in handy albeit one hears very little bad language in France. However, the book was amusing and worth it until I made a petite mistake in French class with "baisser." Oh what a mistake that was...it "brought the house down."

Studlover

Studlover (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:15 am Kristoff, it doesn't change with age. When I lived in Paris this summer, the first thing I did was buy the book on French Slang and Vulgarity. Came in handy albeit one hears very little bad language in France. However, the book was amusing and worth it until I made a petite mistake in French class with "baisser." Oh what a mistake that was...it "brought the house down."

Studlover

Mistake? My tiny French sux. Something about dropping?

splain me dude

kristoff wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2007 8:05 am Mistake? My tiny French sux. Something about dropping?

splain me dude

Kristoff, I thought you'd *never* ask. hehehe.

Ok, here is what happened. I was in class and was just making some some sentences to check verbs, nouns and general speech. I was thinking about returning home and what I would say upon my arrival. So, here is what happened:

"Baiser" (I spelled with two "s" above..sorry French people). There is an ENORMOUS diffence between "baiser" the verb and "baiser" the noun. As a noun, "baiser" simply means a "kiss." For example, "Il m'a fait un baiser en rentrant: He gave me a kiss upon coming home."

Mistakenly and DANGEROUSLY, I used "baiser" (as many Americans do), as a VERB assuming that is means "to kiss" when it actually means "to fuck." Therefore, "Il m'a baise en rentrant" is literally translated: "He fucked me upon coming home."

Well, I said it the "dangerous" way. My teacher who was a cool, rather sexy late 30's lady couldn't stop laughing. It pretty much ended the class for the day.

Now, talk about remember how to say something in a foreign language!!!

I've done several of the same things in Spanish. My mouth is not well connected to my brain and sometimes I mean to say one word and say another word beginning with the same letter when using a second language. I end up going into a drug store in the morning meaning to say 'I need a comb' and actually saying 'I need a penis' or sitting around the dinner table with a bunch of people and meaning to say 'Pass the honey' and really say 'Pass the excrement.' You know from the reaction that it was another case of foot-in-mouth disease.

English is not my first language, so over the years i've made a few mistakes...

Once I was giving a short speech to some guest from the (then) very recently freed baltic states about how basic level democracy works, how to organise political movements in civil society et.c. (I work in politics.)

One of the important goals of any political movement is to recruit more followers. So I tried to describe this, but for my life I couldn't come up with the word "recruit". I had to improvise. I said: "So, the focus would be to get the members together, and have them make more members..."

And then I realized what that implied as they all started laughing.