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This is one of those quirks between national language dialects that will always amuse me. "Knock up" in British slang means "wake up another" while in American
by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
This is one of those quirks between national language dialects that will always amuse me. "Knock up" in British slang means "wake up another" while in American slang it means "impregnate another". https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18568/knocked-up-to-mean-woken-up https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/18568/knocked-up...
- petepete 3y agoTo me, a Brit, the primary meaning of 'knock up' means to make something in a hurry.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoMaybe they're more similar than I thought. I guess 9 months' gestation isn't exactly "in a hurry", though.
- andyferris 3y agoThe knock up occurs immediately prior to those 9 months, and might happen in a hurry…
- Lammy 3y agoThis is also a joke in Futurama https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4BOZcDMw_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4BOZcDMw_A
- nmstoker 3y agoYes, one of the many delightful differences! I'm being picky but "another" seems a bit redundant there, right?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoFor "impregnate", yes. I included it because I included it for "wake up", which is otherwise ambiguous, but I guess I didn't need to. Especially because it would make sense linguistically (from a certain angle) to say an organism which reproduces asexually "knocks itself up".
- mortenjorck 3y agoI've long wondered where the American meaning comes from. In the UK, the etymology is pretty clear from the long-gone occupation described in this article: knocking on a window that is often up on the second story (or perhaps more directly, forcing someone up from their slumber through the act of knocking).
- KPGv2 3y agoLikely "to knock" meant "to have sex with" because during the Gold Rush (mid-19th century), a brothel was called a "knocking house"
- arp242 3y agoAlso see: "knocking boots".
- selimthegrim 3y agoBut cf. knocking shop?
- rvba 3y agoThe phrasal verbs are often completely idiomatic and make no sense at all. "Do someone in" "Come across", "come forward" "Back down" "back up"
- tejohnso 3y agoFrom my experience in Canada, it means impregnate another, but not in a good way. It's usually out of wedlock, unexpected, and maybe not even in a relationship. It would seem very out of place for me to hear someone say they knocked up their wife. But common to tell a young girl with a casual boyfriend not to get knocked up.
- madcaptenor 3y agoI'm American and I agree with this.