An Overworked Particle

IT was interesting the other day to find a newspaper which makes a most prideful boast of its scholarship, coming editorially to the defense of the phrase, ‘It is me,’ on the ground that this phrase has an idiomatic claim in English as well founded as that of ‘C’est moi in French. Doubtless the author of that leader would champion as valiantly the right of Mrs. Hemans to keep Casabianca on the burning deck —

Whence all but he had fled - without resort to parsing ‘but’ as a conjunction. ‘But’ is only one of a long file of prepositions which are also something else, and therefore furnish for the too facile writer a protection against attack on the same resourceful lines as Jackson’s use of the cotton bales at New Orleans. It is a fact, moreover, that of all the busy little parts of speech which slip so glibly from the tongue in colloquial English, none gets more constant exercise than the preposition. Indeed, I long ago made up my mind that, even casting aside the coarser slang which must always remain such, and considering only the phrases which have acquired a recognized and probably permanent foothold in the language of the unfinical masses, the preposition is cruelly overworked. In its own proper character, or disguised as an adverb or a conjunction, or trying to hide behind an object understood, we come upon it at every step in the conversational highway.

I should not regard its presence as unduly obtrusive if we usually had any real need of it; but in nine cases out of ten it is a superfluity, and the clause into which it is thrust would be stronger and better without it. By way of illustration, we go ‘in ’ swimming and ‘out’ riding; and with the dawn of a newer locomotive amusement we may expect to go ‘up’ flying. The man who succeeds has won ‘out,’and his antagonist has lost ‘out.’ When we move ‘down’ south, we are continually asked where we live ‘at’; and we do not need to travel ‘out’ west in order to meet the daily inquiry as to where we are going ‘to.’ We follow ‘on,’ and enter ‘in,’ and cool ‘off’; we fill ‘out’ a cheque, and round ‘out’ a career; we sell ‘out,’ our business by selling ‘off’ our goods; and we shall have used ‘up’ all our medicine after swallowing ‘down’ the last dose.

Our ‘ups’ and ‘downs,’ by the bye, in grammar not less than in life, may well furnish thought for an idle mind. It is entirely reasonable to cut ‘down’ a tree and to cut ‘up’ a cucumber, because simply to cut either would not suffice; but when we lay ‘down’ a carpet and hang ‘up’ a picture we invite criticism for redundancy. We can round ‘up’ a herd of cattle and hammer ‘down’ prices, sell ‘up’ a debtor who has burst ‘up’ financially, and knock ‘down’ his available chattels to the highest bidder, because these are phrases with definite meanings in the trade-vocabulary, and the particle is necessary to their completeness; but it is different when we eat ‘up’ our hickory nuts and drink ‘down’ our cider, since we use but, one channel in consuming both solids and liquids, and the aperture is always in the same place. When a strong man breaks ‘down,’ the friends who witness his collapse are all broken ‘up’ by the spectacle. We speak of a puzzled man as ‘up’ against a perplexity, and of a windfall as having dropped ‘down’ on a lucky one. The schoolmistress bids her restless pupil sit ‘down,’ and his lazy neighbor to stand ‘up.’

Perhaps the worst case of overwork in the whole catalogue occurs with that word ‘up.’ The farmer’s wife cooks ‘up’ a batch of pies, and finishes ‘up’ the job by locking them ‘up’ in the cupboard. The nurse, who has been instructed to feed ‘up’ her patient, beats ‘ up’ the yolk of an egg, and adds to it the milk which she has heated ‘up’ while washing ‘up’ the soiled dishes. The traveler packs ‘up’ his toilet appliances in a certain order, but the motion of the train mixes them ‘up’ badly. The lecturer who has studied ‘up’ his subject may follow ‘up’ his remarks with pictorial illustrations shown ‘up’ in the best light; yet his success does not measure ‘up’ at all with that of his rival who saves ‘up’ his best stories for the last ten minutes, so as to warm ‘up’ his audience and send them away pronouncing his entertainment ‘upand-up.'

’The newspapers tell us of peaceable men beaten ’up ’ by footpads, and Shakespeare talks about killing ’up’ the frightened animals. Miss Mizzourah, the last time she was ’up ' north, met ‘ up ’ with a polite young man who rose ’up ’ whenever she entered the room. She has just heard that he failed ’up ’in the last panic, but hopes soon to connect ’up ’ with a millionaire who will furnish the money to settle ’up ’ his debts and start ’up ’ his business again. This Croesus will doubtless add ’up ’ the profits and the losses of the old concern, and figure ’up ’ how much he can afford to risk, before deciding whether to back ’up ’ the young man in a new venture.

The father who wishes to stir ’up ' the patriotism of his household on the Fourth of July, buys ’up ’ all the fireworks he finds heaped ’up ’ on the store counters, and fdls ’up ’ his dwelling with them, though his wife wishes he would hurry up ’ and get rid of them before they burn up ’ the house — a serious possibility, since the drought has dried up ’ everything.

Sometimes we make combinations which probably never entered the reckoning of the original authors of our prepositions. For instance, we give our neighbor a message to pass on to ' his son, or hand him a banknote to turn over to his favorite charity. In summer we may sleep up on the roof or out on ’ the piazza. The Immortal Bard makes one of his royal personages give another the crown from off ' his head and the pride of kingly sway from out ’ his heart. A crowd lift ‘upon to’ a platform an orator who tells them what is happening over in ' England.

Anon wecombineantithetic particles, as when we invade the dark closet to bring its contents out into ’ the light, or call to our dilatory fellow voyager to come on off ’ the boat. There is a more natural sequence in a warning Jo stand from under,’ or to come out from among ’ the rest. And I never ran across a more delightful example of the descriptive utility of a group of apparently unrelated little words than when I asked a New England farmer for the shortest cut from the turnpike in which we both stood to a house which I knew to be on the other side of a neighboring hill, and was advised to go along over in back around up by ’ a certain school building whose belfry we could just discern among the trees on the ridge. After I had made the tramp, I understood perfectly why he had strung together this odd lot of prepositional seedpearls, and in this very order. They fitted the needs of the case to a nicety. But they were exceptions which go to prove the rule.