Catch someone up

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Dec 12, 2006, at 6:59 AM, neil  crawford wrote:

> I'm aware of losing teams playing catch-up rugby when they have to
> be more
> expansive and risk-taking.
>
> I'm also familiar with meeting someone to catch up on the latest news.
>
> But the following use is new to me. Is it a recent formulation?
>
> "And Jim? How is he?"
>
> "He's the best. He's wonderful, Alex." [...]
>
> "You'll catch me up on what he's doing."

sounds perfectly ordinary to me, and i get 28,200 raw google webhits
for "catch me up on".

at least a few of these are from the UK, but it's possible that the
construction is more common in the US.

(there is, of course, a well-known UK/US difference in "catch up"
expressions, the possibility of "catch you up" meaning 'catch up with
you' in the UK, but not the US.  but that's a different construction.)

arnold

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