TEACHERS CORNER, KEEP IT UP!

Language Level: Basic

Standard: American and British accent

Source: Speak Up, issue 254

Keep it Up!

Keep is another of those confusing English words that have a variety of meanings. Today, it usually means to retain, but it also means, to hold store, preserve, maintain and support. Let’s look at some examples: when you pay a taxi driver, you can tell him or her – keep the change – as a tip.

When you have a lot of bags, you ask a friend to keep, or hold, one of them for a moment.

We keep, or store, food in a fridge; and confusingly, food won’t keep unless we put it in the fridge –it will go rotten.

You keep, or maintain, a horse by feeding it and providing a stable, though today it’s more common to keep a car. Policemen keep the peace: they maintain law and order.

PHRASAL VERBS

As a phrasal verb, keep can change meaning. It’s important, for example, to keep up with the latest developments in business: we must be up to date.

If we have a mortgage, we must keep up the payments –pay every month. If someone starts shouting, we can tell them to keep their voices down –speak more quietly. Signs at a Cambridge college will tell you to “please keep off the grass”, while those at a nuclear power station will say: “Danger: keep out”.

SECRETS

Here’s a riddle how can you “keep your hat on” If you aren’t wearing one? Stay calm –it’s an idiomatic phrase which means “don’t get angry”. Variations are keep your shirt or hair on, and keep cool.

If you keep your nose clean, you stay out of trouble; and if you are in trouble, then you must keep your chin up –try to be optimistic. If you’re a musician, you must keep time –maintain the right tempo.

Finally, can you keep a secret? Benjamin Franklin once commented: “Three (people) can keep a secret, if two of them are dead”.