Language, like most things, is at its crystalline best when it’s unkempt, as though a history of bloodletting and less tactile persuasion had pooled at our feet with little regard for cognitive conveniences like structure, consistency, or clarity. Rustic and disorderly, like an old-fashioned peasant insurrection. Like a good stew. Like the universe, which sniffles at science and mere rationality as they throw paper airplanes at the sun. Of course, there is conjugation and syntax and no mild deficit of grammatical parameters for how we communicate, but I tend to favor the odd bits and anomalies.I’ve been reminded of this resplendent disorder as I listen to our daughter cling to and rehearse every verb she hears from us that includes the word “up.” They’re surprisingly common, and so far, her repertoire includes usage such as …
The raccoon is stuck up in the tree.
Clean up the food I dropped on the floor.
Pick up the screwdriver and hand it to me.
Snap up my nightgown.
Her distinctive tendency towards the imperative aside, isn’t “up” completely unnecessary in these sorts of sentences? There’s one exception above, but for the others: wouldn’t they retain all their meaning without the embellishment? Josephine knows little English (and to be clear, she’s nowhere close to speaking the above sentences verbatim), yet one of the first things onto which she has latched is hollow and ineffectual. That's feeble economizing for someone with so little weight to throw around -- and twenty-two months seems too young for shadow boxing. Then again, maybe it’s the most prescient time for it, saving her best for opponents of genuine substance.
Isn’t there something wonderful in the color and texture added by these two humble characters, U & P? A little “rhetorical flourish” that is inexplicable and mystical.
