DEAR RICHARD: In your recent column, you showcased 10 words that featured a huge number of different meanings. Another word with many uses is up. My family tried one day to think of all the different ways to use up, and we never gave up on our quest! –Kelly Sakoi, Rancho Peñasquitos

What’s up with up, the ever-present two-letter word that sparks forth a multitude of meanings and, at times, no meaning at all? It’s easy to understand up when it means skyward or toward the top of a list. And clearly there are crucial differences between call and call up and beat and beat up. But I have to wonder why we warm ourselves up, why we speak up, why we shower up, why a topic comes up, and why we crack up at a joke.

Let’s face up to it. We’re all mixed up about up. Usually, the little word is totally unnecessary. Why do we light up a cigar, lock up the house, polish up the silverware, finish up a task, and fix up the car when we can more easily and concisely light, lock, polish, and fix them?

At times, verbs with up attached mess up our minds with bewildering versatility. To look up a chimney means one thing, to look up a friend another, to look up to a mentor yet another, and to look up a word something else. We can make up a bed, a story, a test, our face, our mind, and a missed appointment, and each usage has a completely different meaning. 

At other times, up- verbs are unabashedly ambiguous. When we hold up our partners on the pickleball court, are we supporting or hindering them? How, pray tell, can we walk up and down the street at the same time and slow up and slow down at the same time? 

What bollixes up our language worse than anything else is that up can be downright misleading. In certain seasons, we might hope the rain keeps up — so that it won’t come down. A house doesn’t really burn up; it burns down. We don’t really throw up; we throw out and down. We don’t pull up a chair; we pull it along. Most of us don’t add up a column of figures; we add them down.

Why is it that we first chop down a tree, and then we chop it up? And why is it that when we wind up a toy, we start it, but when I wind up this column, I end it?

Maybe it’s time to give up on the uppity up.

Here’s a reader’s thoughts on the multiple meanings of another word:

DEAR RICHARD: In learning English, it was soon evident that some words can have more than one meaning. The word right can have several meanings as I found out as my husband and I were driving (with him at the steering wheel), following the directions of our dashboard leader. I heard her say that we should keep to the left side of the road, and then I heard her say, “Turn right ahead.” To me, since we had been told to keep to the left, “turn right ahead” meant an imminent left turn, as per her instructions to keep to the left. Actually, my husband (correctly) turned right right ahead, and so the awful utterance “recalculating” was avoided. Thank goodness he was driving. –Daina Krigans, Encinitas 

DEAR RICHARD: Shouldn’t the word invaluable mean “not valuable”? Instead invaluable means “highly valuable.” Are there other words like this? –Karen Morris, Carlsbad

Language is created by people, not by robots and is, therefore, not always logical. Hence, if something valuable possesses value, shouldn’t something invaluable lack value? But it doesn’t. That’s because prefixes like -in and suffixes can possess opposite meaning or no meanings. 

If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones? If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same? Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same?

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On Thursday, August 8, staring at 10 am, I’ll be presenting “Words on the Job” at Rancho Bernardo OASIS, 17170 Bernardo Center Drive. For information, call 858 240 2880.
On Monday, August 12, starting at 1:30 pm, I’ll be presenting “Female Strong: Women in American History,” at Remington II, 16925 Hierba Drive, Rancho Bernardo.

Please send your questions and comments about language to Richard Lederer.