U
258 up U up (1) An’ I love you baby, you so nice an’ brown ’Cause you, put it up solid, so it won’t come down. —Kid Bailey,“Rowdy Blues,” 1929 Up the vagina; a sense probably conveyed in double entendre fashion by the following couplet: Now the boat’s up the river, an’ it won’t come down I believe to my soul sweet mama it’s water bound. —Henry Thomas,“Don’t Ease Me In,” 1928 up (2) Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, I can’t make my livin’, around this town. —Lucille Bogan,“They Ain’t Walking No More,” 1930 “In a state of emotional or nervous stimulation,either naturally or as a result of taking drugs; excited, elated . . .” (OED, which dates this colloquialism to 1942). up in years She may be old, up in years She ain’t too old for to shift them gears. —Tommy McClennan,“Bottle It Up And Go,” 1939 Elderly, in Southern black parlance:“We is both way up in years” (Jeff Davis, as quoted in Born in Slavery). upside When you catch my jumper, hangin’ upside your wall Well you know by that baby I need my ashes hauled. —Sleepy John Estes,“The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair,” 1929 On; applied by blacks to surfaces but not expressly to their upper half as in the standard English use of the word (cf.OED).This term survived in the black expression upside the head, invariably used to indicate a telling head blow, fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s.“They had a bunk up side the wall and a trundle bed” (Felix Street, as quoted in Born in Slavery). vamp 259 up the country Well I’m goin’ up the country, won’t be very long Little gal, you can count the days I’m gone. —Bo Weavil Jackson,“You Can’t Keep No Brown,” 1926 A much-used Southern blues expression that was a corruption of up-country, i.e., a part of the country well away from any town (cf. OED, which quotes Kipling [1891]:“I’m going up-country with a column”). used to be I feel a notion, back to my used to be . . . pretty mama, she don’t care for me. —Skip James,“Little Cow And Calf Is Gonna Die Blues,” 1931 Former lover; from the adverbial sense of used to be, meaning formerly. In white Southern speech, this expression has a pejorative ring and is equivalent to has-been (cf. WD). When used adjectivally, it applied to any bygone possession:“‘Y’all still talking bout Brazzle’s ole uster-be mule?’”(Zora Neale Hurston’s De Turkey and de Law: A Comedy in Three Acts [1930]). used to could I used to could get a woman, before I could catch my breath Now I can’t get a break nowhere, an’ I talk myself to death. —Bill Gaither,“I Just Keep On Worryin,” 1937 Used to be able to; a still-used colloquialism (WD) noted by Bartlett (1877) as “[a] vulgarism used in the Southern States for could formerly. . . .” V vag I picked up a newspaper, an’ I looked in the ads An’ a policeman came along, and arrested me for vag. —Ramblin’ Thomas,“No Job Blues,” 1928 Criminal slang for vagrancy (DAUL). vamp (v.) She don’t pay the butcher, one red cent She vamps the landlord, for the rent. —Laura Smith,“Lucy Long,” 1925 To exploit men by using feminine wiles. ...
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