Ok, just a quick question, partly to investigate how far I can plumb the depths of your knowledge, and to encourage debate and discussion (which, as my housemate pointed out, is the kind of thing lonely lecturers say to get someone, anyone, to use their subjects online discussion forums). I figure someone in the world must know the answer and its possible (although I guess not probable - ask a statistician) that that person might read this at some point and bother to respond.
At lunch today James and I were pondering why we say things like 'hang up' when you clearly put the reciever down, why you say 'look up' when this invariably means looking in a book which in turn usually involves (unless you study in a very strange way) looking down. Unfortunately the answers to these questions aren't going to help me in the slightest with my exam tommorrow, but, thankfully, as has been pointed out to me on a number of occasions this week there is a life beyond revision, so if anybody has an answer (or another similar phrase which makes no sense) please do suggest it. And do bear in mind that if no-one bothers to comment after this post, I'm going to look really quite sad and lonesome.
Right, back to revision...
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3 comments:
Well checking back to an long defunct blog was a stroke of genius! Now on with trying to look clever...
Hanging up the receiver must date from the days when the telephone was a two piece set up, a stand which you talked into and the mouth piece which was hung on it. No idea about the other one but I'll keep thinking...
well, sadly I have no clever geniusness to add to this rivetting discussion, but I do have a suggestion to add to the puzzle...
'slip up' - surely whether used literally or metaphorically, thiscomment implies that the general direction of the situation is down, not up!!??????
Gosh this is exciting stuff, hey?
Ed, I think you're quite possibly correct, but i'll pretend you're not so that the puzzle isn't immediately solved by the first respone.
H, I call that clever geniusness myself. I have been in both physical and metaphorical slip ups in the past as you well know, and the general direction is indeed definitely down ;-)
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