to "course-correct"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Oct 4, 2011, at 6:56 AM, Charlie Doyle wrote:

> Just yesterday I heard, "Well, he finally man upped."

moderate number of hits for the externalized version ("man upped", "man upping").  not surprising, given the character of "man up" as a fixed idiom.

my favorite:

  I'm actually pretty impressed that the kid finally man-upped.
http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-forum/lofiversion/index.php/t45555.html
[another commenter corrects this to "manned up"]

> Looking at Google books, I found the (unrelated but interesting) double-inflected phrase "upping and leaving."

double inflection is the standard here; the construction is a coordination (with "up" functioning as a verb), so parallel inflection on the conjuncts is what you'd expect.

MWDEU under _up_ (p. 931)

  2. Some usage books and schoolbooks view the phrase _up and_ with the same distaste they direct at _take and_, _go and_, and _try and_ ... _Up and_ is no bucolic idiom redolent of our frontier past, however; it is current on both sides of the Atlantic, and is used in general publications, often by writers of more than ordinary sophistication. It ... is not highly formal.

[exx with: upped and Vpst, up and Vprs, upped and Vpst, up and Vbse]

OED2 under _up_ v.:

  6. b. colloq. and dial. To start up, come forward, begin abruptly or boldly, to say or do something. Usu. followed by _and_. [cites from mid-19th c. on; *all* exx with parallel inflection in conjuncts]

an example i collected from the Economist:

  These [European masterpieces of art] have been drip-fed into the market ever since, keeping the experts and the point of sale in London.
            But markets, as auction houses and gallery owners like to point out, can up and leave.  Paris's share of the modern-art market has shrivelled since the 1960s.
  ("Suite Anglaise", story in the Economist, 6/24/06, p. 65)

it looks like "up and left" etc. ("My babyfather has up and left my [5-month-old] daughter") is the innovation, but it's pretty widespread.

(surely someone has looked at the construction.)

arnold

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