"knock up"

[Chris Waigl]

Joel S. Berson quoted Byron and wrote:

 >>McGann's  Byron's Major Works.  p.1017
 >>From Byron's random notes
 >>101
 >>If according to some speculations-- you could prove the World many
 >>thousand years older than the Mosaic Chronology -- or  if you
 >>could  knock up Adam & Eve and the Apple & Serpent-- still what  is
 >>to be put  up in their stead? -- or how is the difficulty
 >>removed?  things must  have had a beginning --and what matters  it
 >>when--or how?--- I sometimes think that Man   may be a
 >>relic  of   some higher material being wrecked in a former world--
 >>and degenerated in the hardships  and struggles through Chaos  into
 >>Conformity-- or something like it--- [...]
 >
 >
 >Bisexual in the Garden of Eden?

  Why would Byron have used "American slang" (NSOED for this sense of
"knock up")?

 >The closest sense I find is OED2 18.f. To arouse by knocking at the
 >door.  But there weren't any doors in Eden?

  I sometimes hear this in a broader sense in BrE, synonymous with
"drop by". A friend from Edinburgh once told me to "knock her up"
whenever I felt like it. I had to ask what she meant, and it was
something like "give her a ring"; I also understand that it's possible
to knock someone up via e-mail.

  But isn't Byron using it in the sense "make, put together", a bit
like "whip up"? Since he continues "still what is to be put up in
their stead?", i.e. the knocking up removes the (traditional
realization) of the inhabitants of paradise. He doesn't refer to
paying them a visit. And it would fit with his later talk about
"Creation" and a "Creator". Not that I claim I understand him
entirely.

Chris Waigl

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