upped/up?

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:13 PM -0400 7/10/04, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
>On another list, we have been discussing these variants:
>
>then he up and died
>then he upped and died
>
>Someone else wrote the latter. I had never heard/seen that, and I
>commented. Clearly, individuals vary. "Upped" appears to be older. What is
>really interesting is that I would expect inflection in, say, the
>historical present, as in narratives, thus:
>
>then he ups and dies
>
>not
>
>then he up and dies.
>
>But I am startled by it in the past. The OED has 16th c. citations with
>died and also other verbs (fled, tupped) and also narrative instances in
>this entry for up as a v:
>
>---
>b. colloq. and dial. To start up, come forward, begin abruptly or
>boldly,
>to say or do something. Usu. followed by and. Cf. UP adv.1 33.
>Ê
>ÊÊ(a) 1831 S. LOVER Leg. 82 The bishop ups and he tells him that he must
>mend his manners. 1865 DICKENS Mut. Fr. IV. xiii, Then we both of us ups
>and says, that minute, ÔProve so!Õ 1867- in general dialect use (Eng.
>Dial. Dict.). 1879 R. BROWNING Ned Bratts 125 She ups with such a face,
>Heart sunk inside me: ÔWell, pad on my prate-apace!Õ
>ÊÊ
>ÊÊ(b) 1883 STEVENSON Treas. Isl. xxix, And you have the Davy Jones's
>insolence to up and stand for cap'n over me! 1884 ÔMARK TWAINÕ Huck. Finn
>xxv, All of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them. He says: [etc.].
>1898 ÔH. S. MERRIMANÕ Roden's Corner xxvii, A gesture that
>served..to..invite the Frenchman to up and smite him. 1935 E. E. CUMMINGS
>Let. 31 Jan. (1969) 135 And he ups and hands Am [Eimi] such a boost as
>would knock Karl Marx's whiskers out of Benjamin G. Woozeythought's
>cabinet d'aisance. 1958 ÔA. GILBERTÕ Death against Clock 81 So you upped
>and fled. 1961 O. NASH Coll. Verse 33 One of these days not too remote
>I'll probably up and cut your throat. 1973 Black World Jan. 62/1 It did no
>good. I upped and died. 1979 J. RATHBONE Joseph I. i. 20 As soon as we
>could we upped and fled.
>---
>
>What do you say? Expect to hear? (Spellcheck did not object to upped.)
>
I don't object to it either--I would expect both "up and died" and
"upped and died" to be amply instantiated.  The former wins the
google-off, 13,000 to 294, but the latter isn't too shabby.

Larry