Up.  The Texan’s favorite word.

When we cook stuff, we don’t cut the potatoes … we cut them up.  We don’t chop the onions … we chop them up.  And we don’t slice some tomatoes … we slice up some tomatoes.

In New York, they would then whip the potatoes, stir the beans and burn the roast.  But here in Texas, we whip up the potatoes, stir up the beans, and burn up the roast.

Then we clean up the dishes, sweep up the dirt off the floor, and wipe up any messes.

If we cook up a whole batch of beans, we can “put some up”.  A foreigner (that is someone not from Texas) will always ask, “Put them up where?”

Our kids’ clothes get torn up, so we sew ‘em up, fix ‘em up, or patch ‘em up.  Their faces get messed up, so clean ‘em up. 

We don’t wrap gifts … we wrap them up.  We don’t fill our gas tanks … we fill them up.

You can wear make-up.  Or you can kiss and make up.  Or you can make up a story.  You can also make up a bed.

Here are a couple of excerpts from The Texan Digest:

“Big Brother was all riled up because Little Brother ‘fessed up to messing up his pickup.  Big Bro said he better cough up the money it was gonna take to fix up the pickup.  He was fed up.  He said if Mom and Dad would leave it up to him, he would beat up Little Bro and be up and done with it.  Mom said she had raised him up better than that and to please hush up.  She said to kiss and make up.”  (14 ups)

“You call up your friend.  She is trying to open up to you.  Her boyfriend has messed things up when he told her to shut up.  She is burned up.  She wants to try to patch things up, but doesn’t know if they’re worth fixing up or not.  She decides to give up.  She gets up her courage and calls him up.  She breaks up with him.  He’s all broken up over it, and promises to make it up to her.”  (13 ups)

Well, I guess I’d better wrap this up, so I can get up and go round up my kids.

I’ll close with the Texan mother’s prayer: “I hope he hasn’t stirred up any trouble, messed up on his tests, or gotten whooped up on at school today.”