Talk:upper

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

I'm thinking about adding a noun defintion to upper, from which derive washer-upper, cheerer-upper, looker-upper, beater-upper etc. and I'm struggling to do better than "an agent noun for phrasal verbs ending in up". Also, is there a linguistic name for the process of changing these phrasal verbs into nouns? --Jackofclubs 13:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• Clearly, this is not convential English - colloquial or slang at best. Similar situations arise with e.g. maker-outer, cooler-downer and theoretically with all phrasal verbs however ugly they sound (emailer-backer sniffer-arounder? puller-togetherer? comer-upper-wither? getter-ridder-offer?) There's a few googles for all these terms, although mostly none of them are CFI-meeters. --Jackofclubs 13:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
• I wouldn't say those derive from (deprecated template usage) upper. The term (deprecated template usage) washer-upper comes from (deprecated template usage) wash up + (deprecated template usage) -er. --EncycloPetey 03:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Dalzell's New Patridge agrees with you, noting that washer-up is the original agentive formation, to which a second -er is added, and to which, for comic effect, a third -er is sometimes added: washer-upperer.

    I am not suprised, given the apparent tendency to stick as many -ers on the end as possible, that we have washer-upper but don't yet have the older (Google Books has occurrences from the 1820s.), more common (and more sensible) washer-up. ☺ Uncle G 02:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

catcher-upper is another one. Equinox ◑ 17:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–March 2020

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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upper

Noun: "That which is higher, contrasted with the lower. As the restless sleeper here, I'll take the lower berth. You take the upper." I think that's an adjective there (like "you have brown shoes; I have black"). Equinox ◑ 18:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

In a context where someone has a pair of black shoes as well as brown shoes, they can say, "I wear the browns" ([1], [2], [3]). You can do this in many contexts with many adjectives, most commonly in the plural.  --Lambiam 21:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

At first I was totally inclined to agree, but for grins I did a search and found this [[4]]...not sure what to make of it yet Leasnam (talk) 18:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Found this as well, which seems eerily similar to the usex given for the sense 1. It even looks like it might be a clipping of upper berth/upper berths => upper/uppers [[5]] Leasnam (talk) 18:58, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

cited. I added a selection of meanings, including those higher in the social hierarchy and upper teeth, as well as the bunks or berths already mentioned. I could probably supply three cites for each meaning, except perhaps the ropes on the sailboat. Kiwima (talk) 20:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps what we should be looking for is citations where "upper" is used without explicitly giving a noun that is modified by this as an adjective. In that case, I can cite upper berths or bunks, upper teeth, and social elites. We could break these off into three separate definitions, and remove the more vague "that which is higher". Kiwima (talk) 21:43, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Can't many (even most) English adjectives be used this way? I found that flimsy, apico-domal, complete, quiet, unique are used this way. Some adjectives aren't attestable being used this way, but it often seems for reasons of phonology, eg. differents. DCDuring (talk) 23:41, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

It's been many years, but I vaguely remember upper as a partial denture (or was it orthodontia?) for the upper jaw, as in "I just got fitted for a new upper". Whatever the details, it's definitely a noun- if we can verify it. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:09, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The present usage example for the generic definition, "As the restless sleeper here, I'll take the lower berth. You take the upper", is quite weak IMO, since, as DCDuring says, pretty much any adjective can be used in this pattern with the definite article and an implied noun omitted. I would lay out the relevant definitions along the broad lines of "That which is higher, or above something else, especially ..." and then list the common special cases, such as the part of the shoe. Mihia (talk) 18:12, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. I took @Mihia's suggestion and converted the entry into groupings of general meanings, which led me to group some of the other definitions as well. Kiwima (talk) 21:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Hypothetical noun: somebody who "ups" something

e.g. an upper of limits (he upped the limit), an upper of one's game (you need to up your game). Is it ever used this way? Equinox ◑ 16:32, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Etymology

[u'''p (adj) + -er3.''' Cf. MDu. upper (Du. and Flem. opper), LG. upper, üpper, MSw., Norw. yppare, older Da. yppere, better.] Backinstadiums (talk) 10:01, 25 June 2022 (UTC)