Red up [read up?]
After a meal, Mom would tell us to ‘Red up the table.’ I’ve not heard the phrase used outside our home, nor has anyone I’ve asked ever heard the phrase. Here is a post from that has some information about the phrase
Posted by Victoria S Dennis October 13, 2005In reply to Red up posted by ESC on October 12, 2005
I’m from Pennsylvania, and I often heard people where I grew up say “red up” (or “read up” perhaps) as in:
“Okay, kids, it’s time to red up your room.”
which means “to clean” or “to straighten.” I’m assuming, without any real evidence, that this phrase has its origins with the Pennsylvania Dutch, but I don’t really know. I learned quickly, in my Army days, however, that it does seem to be a unique phrase to this geographical area.
I’ve brought this phrase (and some others) up in my classes from time to time, but I’ve never been able to find a satisfactory explanation. The closest I got was one student (his great grandmother was PA Dutch and barely spoke English) suggesting that it goes back to the color of barns and that “redding up” the barn was a way to make it look better. That makes a bit of sense, but I’d prefer to have a more academic explanation. Any information would be appreciated.
Here’s all I know.
RED UP, REDDING UP, RID UP — to ready or to clean up. “We went to ‘redding up’ (after a strong wind had lifed the roof, sending moss and dried chinking mud down on the floor). From “Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech Based on the Research of Horace Kephart,” edited by Harold J. Farwell Jr., and J. Karl Nicholas (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 1993).
It’s also Scots and N English dialect, with the same meaning. According to the OED it was originally identical with the verb “to rid”, meaning “clear, put in order, clean up”.
From “The Colorado Kid” by Stephen King (A Hard Case Crime Novel, 2005), set in Maine, Page 101: “Mother and Dad were in the kitchen finishin the supper dishes — ‘doin the riddin-up’ is what we say in these parts…”
Grammarphobia. Grammar, etymology, usage, and more, brought to you by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerma
Q: I spent 20 years in the Pennsylvania Dutch area of York-Lancaster, PA. Some old-time residents there consistently use the term “ret up” to mean clean up, as in “ret up the table” after dinner. Can tell me where this term originated?
A: The verbal phrase “redd up” (also seen as “red up,” “ret up,” and even “rid up”) has its roots in a Middle English verb redden, which meant to rescue or free from, or to clear. Today, “redd up” means to clear an area or make it tidy.
The terms “redd” and “redd up” came to the American Midlands with the many Scottish immigrants who settled there, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).
The word “redd” is still used in Scotland (and Northern Ireland), the dictionary says, and it’s especially common in Pennsylvania in the expression “redd up.”
Anyone who lives in Pittsburgh is familiar with the term. The city’s annual campaign against litter is called “Let’s Redd Up Pittsburgh.”
But you don’t have to be from Pennsylvania to redd up. The residents of the Shetland Islands, off northern Scotland, call their annual cleanup “Da Voar Redd Up” (“The Spring Clean Up”).
redd – From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
redd, red, rid vb (usually with up, sometimes off or out/oot) To clean or tidy (a room or table), set in order, clear debris from, arrange. [< Middle English redden, probably < Middle Low German/Middle Dutch reden ‘to put in order’; oed redd vb2 6a ‘to put in order, to make neat or trim’ obsolete except dialect; dost red vb2 1 ‘to clear (a space, or a passage) by removal of debris, undergrowth or other encumbrances’, 2 ‘to clear a place, a piece of ground, a passage, waterway, etc.) (of encumbrances, as rubbish, debris, etc.) 1446→, 3 ‘to clear away or remove (debris, rubbish, etc.) 1517→; snd redd vb 7(1) ‘of a room, building: to tidy (up)’ and rid up (at rid vb 6); cud redd1 vb 2 ‘clear, tidy up’, rid vb 1 ‘set in order’; dare redd vb 3a ‘to clear off a table’ chiefly North Midland, especially Pennsylvania, Ohio, Appalachians]
Ulst.:
1823 Atkinson Ireland Exhibited 359-60 The hostler apologised for its disorder by saying, that they had ‘bin so basy gatin in oats, (that is, busy getting in) that they hadn’t time to redd it (that is, to make it ready, or to cleanse it)’.
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 82 red = (1) done work: ‘What time will you get red?’; (2) to put in order, to separate fighters.
1881 Hart Mere Irish 93 At last, when the whole place was redd up and put to rights, he sat down at the fire again, and joined the potatoes that were waiting for him.
c1910 Byers Glossary ‘I was reddin’ up the room a bit and I went about it as mum as a mouse’ = tidying up or arranging.
1910 Joyce English in Ireland 311 = clear, clear out, clear away: ‘redd the road’ (clear the way).
1923 Lutton Montiaghisms 33 redd up = to adjust and put in order things that are in confusion.
1942 Bangor Words 64 redd up = tidy or clean up: ‘I haven’t redd up yet’; clear up and finish: ‘When will you be redd up this evening?’
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 228 red(d) = to set in order; to tidy, clean up (generally with up): ‘Redd up the furniture’; ‘Redd up the fire’. Ibid. 232 rid = to clear.
1990 McIntyre Some Handlin’ 46 redd up = clean or tidy up: ‘We have to redd up our classroom before we go home’.
1991 O’Kane You Don’t Say 115 red = to clean up, to clear out, to make a clearance: ‘Will you help me to red out the garage?’
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 192 (often with oot) = empty, clear out: ‘A took an redd oot the shade’; redd the road = clear the way; redd up = clear up, tidy up.
U.S.:
1869 Gibbons Pennsylvania Dutch 24.477 When a death occurs, our Dutch neighbors enter the house … Some ‘redd up’ the house.
1913 Kephart Our Sthn High 83 Then that tidal wave of air swept by. The roof settled again with only a few shingles missing. We went to ‘redding up’.
1938 Justus No-End Hollow 130 I mean to wash and redd up the house before I do any special cooking.
1974 Fink Bits Mt Speech 22 red up = arrange, make tidy: ‘Set here while I red up the room’.
1982 Barrick Coll: redd out = clean out ‘I got to redd out my cupboards’.
1982 McCool Pittsburghese 29 redd = clean or tidy an area, as in ‘Quick, redd up the house, Mom is coming’.