935. Ever been puzzled by the difference between "slow down" and "slow up"? Curious about how they can possibly mean the same thing (or do they)? We answer a burning listener question about why prepositions can be so darn tricky in English. Join us also as we delve into the fascinating world of minced oaths, examining intriguing words like "zounds" and "gadzooks."
935. Ever been puzzled by the difference between "slow down" and "slow up"? Curious about how they can possibly mean the same thing (or do they)? We answer a burning listener question about why prepositions can be so darn tricky in English. Join us also as we delve into the fascinating world of minced oaths, examining intriguing words like "zounds" and "gadzooks."
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/slow-up-slow-down/transcript
The "slow down" segment was written by Susan Herman, a former U.S. government multidisciplined language analyst, analytic editor, and instructor.
The "minced oath" segment was by Kirk Hazen, a professor of linguistics at West Virginia University. It was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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What in tarnation is Grammar Girl talking about this week?
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. This week, we’ll look at the difference between “slow down” and “slow up,” and we’ll have fun exploring some minced oaths.
I love listener questions, and we got an interesting one recently.
"Hi, Grammar Girl! I wanted to ask a question about the expression 'slow down.' So, many years ago, I was watching an episode of the show 'Cops,' and I remember a police officer describing the apprehension of a suspect, and he said that he 'slowed up.' So I'm from the Pacific Northwest, and from the officer's accent, I was sure he was from the East Coast. I understood him as meaning that he 'slowed down' to speak to a person of interest. I've been wondering over the years about the expression 'slow up' versus 'slow down.' 'Slow up' seems to mean decrease your speed. 'Slow down' seems to indicate that you're going faster. 'Slow up' seems to make more sense to me than saying 'slow down' if I want to mean that someone is going slower. My question is: Is using 'slowing up' to mean 'slowing down' grammatically incorrect, and if so, why? Thank you so much for all your wonderful work."
This is a great question, and one that demonstrates why prepositions are so tricky in English, and also the use of phrasal verbs. More on that in a second. First, the short answer to the follower’s question is no, it is not grammatically incorrect to use “slow up” to mean “slow down.” Both are acceptable. Let’s delve into the topic a little further.
First, verbs like “slow up” and “slow down” are called phrasal verbs, which as the name implies are phrases that act like verbs. Phrasal verbs are made up of a verb plus an adverb or a preposition, such as "up" and "down." Phrasal verbs typically mean something other than what you would guess from the meaning of their parts. For example, the phrasal verb "cheer up" doesn't mean to shout into the sky. It means to become happier, as in "I hope Aardvark cheers up soon." And to "look after" something doesn't mean to set your eyes on it later; it means to take responsibility for or watch, as in "Do you think Squiggly would look after my dog while I'm away?"
But do the phrasal verbs “slow down” and “slow up” really mean the same thing? Turns out that they do in various dialects of English. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines “slow down” as “to cause (something) to move or operate more slowly; to decrease (the speed or rate) of something; to make slower,” and “slow up” as “to decrease in speed; to become less active, lively, or intense; to become slower.” So there is not much difference. The OED provides examples of both phrases dating back to the mid-1800s, which is relatively recent in linguistic terms. And both usages first appeared in the United States.
A Google Books Ngram Viewer search of both terms shows that they had almost equal usage until about 1900, and then “slow down” began to increase handily and still holds the top spot. But does that mean “slow up” is incorrect? Well, not so fast. It is still in use and has been documented in recent years in the OED entries mentioned before.
A search on the Quora, Word Reference, and HiNative online forums shows that most people agree that both “slow down” and “slow up” are acceptable. But they don’t necessarily agree on where each is more common. Some people seem to think that “slow up” is more of a British usage, but there are just as many sources online that refute that. Several people do say that “slow up” is used more in the southern U.S. And one Word Reference commenter suggested that “slow up” might be related to “pulling up” on a horse’s reins to get it to slow down or stop. It makes sense, but there is no documented proof of that. So it seems that both are universally synonymous.
But hold up! Are there other phrasal verbs similar to “slow down” and “slow up”? Well, “hold up” is also used and is defined by Wiktionary and other sources as an informal or slang usage meaning “to wait or delay,” as in, “Hold up a minute. I want to check something.” And to highlight how phrasal verbs can have multiple meanings that can make them even more confusing for people learning English, "hold up" also means to rob at gunpoint, as in "Someone held up the bank today;" and it also means to endure or keep it together, as in "The teller is holding up pretty well, considering;" and to call out as an example, as in "The teller did everything right; I'm sure management will hold her up as an example of how to stay safe during a robbery."
Finally, it’s not just “slow” that can combine with “up” or “down” to mean virtually the same thing. Here are a couple of other examples of this phenomenon:
“to be down for something” and “to be up for something,” as in:
“Do you want to go dancing tonight?”
“Close up” and “close down”:
“How late are you open?”
(“Close down” may also have the connotation of closing something more permanently, as in, “The neighborhood carnival closes down next week (until next summer).”
So, as you can see, loyal listener, phrasal verbs can be amazingly flexible and overlapping. That officer on “Cops” did not steer you wrong. Good for you for slowing down (or slowing up) and noticing this detail!
That segment was written by Susan Herman, a former U.S. government multidisciplined language analyst, analytic editor, and instructor.
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This next segment is by linguist Kirk Hazen, so when you hear the word “I,” that means him, and it contains some very mild swearing.
What in tarnation is “tarnation?” Why do people in old books exclaim “zounds!” in moments of surprise? And what could a professor of linguistics possibly have against “duck-loving crickets?”
I’ll get to the crickets later. But what unites all these expressions is a desire to find acceptable versions of profane or blasphemous words. “God” becomes “gosh,” “hell” becomes “heck,” and “damnation” becomes “tarnation.” In a similar vein, the rather antiquated phrase “God’s wounds” turns into “zounds.”
This lexical skirting of religious sensitivities falls in the category of expressions known as “minced oaths.” They are a kind of euphemism: an indirect expression substituted to soften the harsher blow of the profane.
As a lifelong student of language, I celebrate the variation of minced oaths and delight in comparing them with other euphemisms and slang. They provide examples of how people craft language to simultaneously conform and rebel, while building social cohesion.
Both slang and minced oaths are forms of synonyms – words used to replace others while conveying the same core meaning. But minced oaths have historically performed a very specific role: providing a weakened but socially acceptable form of an actual religious oath, swear, or curse.
The earliest use of the term “minced oaths,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1654, when elders in the Banffshire area of Scotland were criticized for using them.
But the use of them had been around for at least a century before then. The playwright Christopher Marlowe used “zounds” as early as 1593 as an exclamation: “Zounds hee'l raise vp a kennell of Diuels.”
The term “bloody” was first recorded as the British now use it in 1540 and originally had no religious connotation. It was only centuries later that it was ascribed one, potentially standing in for “by her lady” and “God’s blood” and thus becoming somewhat of an adopted minced oath.
The compound “gadzooks” – perhaps from “God’s hooks” – makes a written appearance in the second half of the 1600s in a play by Irish writer Thomas Duffett: “Now to get off, gadzooks, what shall we do?”
Surprisingly “gosh” and “heck” are latecomers – “Gosh” does not show up until 1757 and “heck” as an interjection only takes off at the end of the 19th century.
Up until the late 1800s, the most common expletives in English had some kind of Biblical reference, but as Melissa Mohr explored in her history of swearing, “Holy Sh*t,” these blasphemous oaths started declining in the 1700s and gave way by 1900 to profanity based on physical attributes and functions – body parts, sex, and excrement. Mohr links this change to the decline of the Christian church as a central powerbroker in people’s lives. As Mohr writes, “Obscenities took the place of vain oaths to become our swear words.”
With this transition, the impact of minced oaths waned from the tantalizingly close to the profane to mere humorous airs with a knowing wink. It is one thing to earnestly swear, “Begorrah [By God], I will not fail!” and another to have Gomer Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show humorously exclaim “Golly!” when something surprises him.
While some minced oaths have persisted – one even becoming part of a popular hat-wearing dog meme [with a skeptical looking Shiba Inu in a cowboy hat saying “What in tarnation?”] – many have fallen from common usage. Others have slipped from being seen as profane to become simply mild expressions, like “Sam Hill ” for “hell.”
Either way, minced oaths live on, getting recycled or created anew today to provide humor, or a range of emotional force. Using “fudge!” after a paper-cut allows for restrained fist-shaking at the universe. And if family and friends can settle on the same minced oaths, they can better commiserate with their own in-group slang.
Meanwhile, minced oaths based on modern sexual swearing can be all kinds of fun. On the popular NBC series “The Good Place,” a popular running gag – with a possible wink to the censors – is that characters are unable to utter obscenities. When they attempt to, they end up saying “fork,” “shirt” or “bench” instead of, well, you can use your imagination.
With enough exuberance thrown behind these terms, residents of the Good Place can draw humor from the contrast with the profanity viewers anticipate.
Similarly, the Irish TV show “Father Ted” – which follows a trio of Catholic priests exiled on a fictional island off Ireland – employed “feck” as a regular part of the dialogue. The pure exuberance and frequency of its use by characters creates the comedy.
The popularity of these shows fostered an uptick in the use of these minced oaths, as people put their comedic effect to work in their own lives.
But sometimes, defanging profanity just doesn’t quite hit the mark. In her research on swearing, Emma Byrne, author of “Swearing is Good for You,” finds that “the frisson of taboo” is required for the therapeutic qualities of swearing like pain relief. As Byrne reports, learning swear words early on in one’s native language has measurable physiological effects. Cursing helps relieve pain, raise the pulse, and sharpen the memory.
Yet minced oaths provide some degree of power and latitude at times of social control. For instance, before the Quiet Revolution, the Quebecois French created a set of words, called “sacres,” to defy the Catholic Church. People began to use words associated with church rituals as exclamations and interjections.
With some slight modifications, words like “tabernacle” – the place in a church where items of the Eucharist are held – are used in place of a profanity in Quebecois French. For example, after your favorite team loses again, you could shout “Tabarnak! Encore une défaite!” Or, for a gentler profanity, “Tabarnouche!” or “Barnak!” can be used.
Because minced oaths allow for a small scream into the void while avoiding taboo words, parents are often avid fans. Some families pass them along like heirlooms. My family inherited “Holy Cow” and “Heavens to Betsy” from grandparents.
When I became a parent I shifted my own swearing, and somehow I landed on variations of “duck-loving crickets.” Perhaps phonetic similarities to actual profanities or the intonational cadence qualified them as somehow forceful yet also purposefully missing the mark.
My daughter rejected mine, but adopted “shiitake mushrooms” as her exclamation, drawing out the first syllable.
You see, there is always room for more in the mixed bag of minced oaths.
That segment was by Kirk Hazen, a professor of linguistics at West Virginia University. It was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Finally, I have a familect story.
"Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Anthony from Bassett(?), New York. Love your show. Really enjoyed listening to the podcast. Wanted to share a fun familect from our family. My six-year-old son, Kayden — then six-year-old-son, Kayden — one night after reading his stories, asked for a cup of night water. And at first, my wife and I thought that was a little bit strange, a little bit funny. He had a little smirk on his face, but he was just asking for a glass of water before he went to bed, and from then on, it became a little familect for us that he asks for a cup of night water before he goes to bed, so it's just something cute. We call it that as well now, and I thought I'd share. Thanks so much for your program. I love listening to it. Have a great day."
Thanks, Anthony. You won’t believe this! My editor, Adam Cecil, who you hear me mention at the end of every podcast, has a blog called Night Water and an Instagram account dedicated to nothing but night water memes. I was not aware of these memes, and I’m sure you and Kayden weren’t either, but apparently, talking about how water tastes better in the middle of the night is a whole Internet thing. Adam says Kayden was definitely ahead of his time, as that night water will certainly “hit different.”
Thanks for the call.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL. It’s in the show notes, and be sure to tell me the story behind your familect because that’s always the best part.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, Thanks to our audio engineer, Nathan Semes, and our director of podcasts, Adam Cecil. Thanks also to our digital operations specialist Holly Hutchings, our marketing associate Davina Tomlin, and our ad operations specialist Morgan Christianson, who is the youngest of three children.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.