Queries about "Up and at 'em" (open quote/apostrophe)

[neil]

> From: Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 12:42:30 -0500
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Queries about "Up and at 'em"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Queries about "Up and at 'em"
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
-
>
> LION gives this (I can't find it in EEBO), from Richard Head and Francis
> Kirkman's _The English Rogue_ (1671):  ". . . if they, in the Morning, did
> fall to drinking again, taking a hair of the Old Dog, then he would up, and at
> them again."
>
> I'm not sure that's an actual instance of the saying, though.  How definitive
> is imperative mood, or the contracted _'em_?
>
> And why do I find backward apostrophes so annoying??
>
> --Charlie

Because Bill Gates' Microsoftware can't recognise an apostrophe used to
indicate omission at the beginning of a word.

Last year, The Guardian (UK) had a self-advert set it what was probably
120pt Helvetica Bold which included '06 in the headline -- and, of course,
it was an open quote rather than an apostrophe.

--Neil Crawford
> ___________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:02:45 -0800
>> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>> Subject: Re: Queries about "Up and at 'em"
>
>>
>> The phrase has long been attributed to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo in
>> 1815, in the form "Up, Guards, and at 'em !"
>>
>>  I don't know the ultimate source of this claim.
>>
>>  JL
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org