It's up to you; have you had enough up?

Believe it or not, there are more uses for the word UP. BW read the recently published column and said, "I didn't realize how many ways we use the word UP. It seems like you thought UP all of them." Then she mused, "Did you think of the kid who wanted to stay UP past his bedtime

We brainstormed other uses of UP in our daily communication. You are the benefactor of our fertile thinking. I can already hear some of you shriek, "Not more UPs! I can't take any more!" Suck it UP, Audley, here are some more uses of the word UP.

When we say roll up your tent and put it up, do we mean clean it up and then put it up? We say sign up here, step up and tell your story, we wait for the yard to green up in the spring, we fire up, get a leg up on the competition and get all choked up. We rev up the engine, leave it up to someone else, fight and then make up and then apply makeup to our black eye, trade up, build up, we wait to grow up so we can dress up and date someone whom we stick up for when others may criticize and often we have to "fess up" when we are wrong.

When a crook is hiding from the police we say he is holed UP somewhere or we say we hole UP to ride out a storm. Some people are so full of themselves we say they are stuck UP.

We say that a car has pulled UP to the door. We encourage people to save UP their money to purchase a house. Children are instructed to chew UP their food to aid in digestion and we use a food processor to grind UP our food to aid the chewing UP of the food. Merchants mark UP prices and we turn UP the volume on our radios. When things are bad but beginning to improve we say things are looking UP. When we become ill we throw UP.

When our vehicles are not operating properly we have them tuned UP. If it takes too long we say that the time is UP. BW is well known for doctoring UP recipes to make them better. A student asks the teacher how to spell a word and the teacher says, "Look it UP." Students are encouraged to count UP to 100. If they try to please the teacher too much we say they are sucking UP.

Guys approach girls to finagle them into spending time together and they use their favorite pick UP lines. Then the girls and guys dress UP to go on dates. Well, they used to. When they drive a pickUP truck on their date they buckle UP for safety. They come home and hang UP their clothes in the closet only after hanging UP the phone from talking to the very person they were hanging out with. The dating scene does not seem to have the hangUPs that existed in the 60s. If one gets dumped, we say suck it UP and move on.

If it is UP to me, there will be no more writing on UP. I am now officially over UP. I think.

Larry grew up north of Calvertville on a farm and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State University. He can be reached at Goosecrick@aol.com or (317) 839-7656. He has published six books.