What does that expression mean to you? Until a minute ago, I wouldn’t have thought there was any doubt about it: Merriam-Webster’s says “up-and-up an honest or respectable course—used in the phrase on the up-and-up,” and that’s how I’ve always heard it used. But now, thanks to Geoff Nunberg (via jim), I find that a great many people think it means ‘on the increase,’ or ‘improving,’ as in “Hong Kong’s trade is on the up and up.” Nunberg was as suprised as I am, and he gives this striking example:
Out of curiosity, I sent a question about the item to a discussion group that’s peopled by dialectologists and other devotees of word-lore. I had a note back from someone in Berkeley who told me that he was surprised to hear that “on the up and up” could be used to mean “on the increase.” But when he asked his wife about it, she said that for her that was the only thing it could mean —she never knew it could mean “on the level.” And what made it odder still was that they’ve been married for more than twenty years and both grew up in Southern California.
I had this image of the two of them sitting at the breakfast table. He asks “Is your brother’s new business on the up-and-up?” and she says, “No, but he’s making do.” And they go on like that with neither of them ever realizing that they’re talking at cross-purposes. Deborah Tannen, call your office.
He gives further examples of expressions whose “disparate meanings can live side-by-side without anybody seeming to notice”; as always, he’s worth reading in full.
Funny — one of the Englishmen at Crooked Timber used “on the up-and-up” to mean “increasing” recently — I posted to ask whether that was the meaning of it in Britain, and he said no, he had just been tired when writing and had meant to say “on the rise”.
Another odd thing is that the expression isn’t even listed in the Cassell Concise Dictionary, my usual guide to contemporary UK usage.
I read the commentary by Nunberg yesterday. I was quite surprised, since I am one of those who only use “on the up and up” to mean “on the level,” legit, not crooked, dishonest or illegal. I had never seen it mean “on the increase.” It reminded me of the debate over the word “Luddite.” For some it was a perfectly ordinary word, yet others felt it to be extremely obscure. Can we live side by side with others, thinking we speak the same language, but yet be separated by invisible lines of demarcation?
Hah! I didn’t know there was such a phrase, even, as “up-and-up”.
I suppose that if I come here I have to watch my language – I mean, I don’t use dirty language, but my grammar isn’t that great.
(I don’t even know if saying “grammar is great” is good English!)
Summer, this is one place you don’t have to worry about your language. Nobody’s going to tell you “that’s bad English!”… though you might get asked where you’re from, because linguistic types are always curious about dialects. Languagehat believes that English belongs to its speakers, not its teachers!
Another datapoint: I’ve always used it in the “improving” sense. Didn’t know it had another meaning.
I have a feeling that this is the most dominant usage in Australia. If you restrict Google to only show Australian sites, I think you can get a sense of that.
Excellent. Any other regions reporting in?
“Up and Up”, I did think it was another way of saying he was on his “uppers” ye know no soles on his shoes(last legs), out of the ever ready.
Oh well ! yer live an’ learn.
I’d concur with John Hardy – I think that the dominant usage in Australia has the sense of ‘on the rise’. It is also the kind of expression I’d expect to hear from my grandmother – ‘I’ve not been well but I’m on the up and up’ …
I know it as ‘increasing’ (British)
Another American who’s never heard it the other way, here. Though it rings with a grin in my ear. Can’t imagine anyone nowadays using it, or “on the level”, as part of their regular vocabulary.
I also concur with John Hardy about the Australian usage; I’ve only ever understood ‘on the up-and-up’ to mean ‘getting better’, ‘on the improve’.
Pacific NW of the US, here — I’ve never (knowingly) heard “up-and-up” in the “increasing” or Australian sense. I use it in my daily speech (interestingly, tho, as I query my mind, I can only imagine using it in a question — “is that really on the up and up?” — and not in a statement.)
Southern England here, and I would only have understood it in the “increasing” sense. But it’s not really in my active vocabulary. The other sense would be “on the level”, which is a much more common phrase, and something I might actually use spontaneously. I can’t imagine “on the up and up” being used outside of a journalistic context.
From the depth of street markets, in out of the way spot not marked in the AA guide, You see a character { a straight and narrow type}, offering that has to be , the most fantastic bargain, too good to miss[48″ flat hdtv for 30 bob] You would Question Our Upright citizen “on the up and up me old china” Ans your guess? Of course now one has Ebay?
take a peek-
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=up*3+0&dict=I
http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=up*3+0&dict=I
My version is attributed to America. Therefore I must have been brain washed [too much lead in the gas{100 octane}] by those Damn Yankee Pilots in their mustangs./[Pee47]
From dungbeatle’s link:
be on the up and up
INFORMAL
if someone or something is on the up and up they are becoming more and more successful
Since the recession ended, our business has been on the up and up.
(American, informal) if a person or an activity is on the up and up, they are honest
You can trust Mick – he’s on the up and up.
(from Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms)
And I’m going to add that Cambridge search page to my sidebar; many thanks!
Funny – when I try to imagine hearing someone say on the up and up (in any sense), what appears is always a character from Lovejoy (semi-comic British tv series about an antiques trader) – and he means it in the sense here labelled as American.
“on the Up and Up ” I found a reference in a Latin Primer “Intensive Course” p15. In Barnes and Noble [today] for the an example of an Idiom. Sorry! I did not record clearly the all the relevant data , my scratchings were bedunged . Naturally no further explanation on what the idiom stood for , I guess! look up Martial? or maybe Catullus?
Our grandsons, home for the holidays from their respective colleges, paid us a surprise visit, and in the course of the conversation one of them, talking about a sick aunt, said she was “on the up and up.” I was, of course, delighted to encounter the new usage in the wild, and I found and quoted this post, which pleased them. (I was surprised the post was so old, before either of them was born; they were surprised the phrase had ever meant ‘honest or respectable.’)
Also, we got to talking about slang and one of them said a friend of his had tried to expand “fire” (‘amazing, excellent’) to “fireworks,” but it seemed unsatisfactory somehow, so one of them suggested replacing it by “Fourth of July,” but that seemed clunky, and the other said it should be abbreviated to simply “fourth,” which we all agreed was genius (and works well with the recent expression du jour “six seven”). So if you hear Gen Z’ers suddenly start saying “Fourth!” you’ll know where it came from: it was created at the House of Hat on the evening of Dec. 19, 2025.
And here I thought the “on the rise” sense of “on the up and up” might just be regional in New Mexico.
I have always understood the idiom meaning “on the rise, improving”; this is the first time that I hear of it having a different meaning for some people. But I’m not a native speaker.
Never heard of the “increasing” meaning until now, only the “on the level” one.
La lutte continue!
I had encountered the M-W meaning about once and the other one probably never.
@Hans I have always understood the idiom meaning “on the rise, improving”; this is the first time that I hear of it having a different meaning for some people. But I’m not a native speaker.
@Y Never heard of the “increasing” meaning until now, only the “on the level” one.
Ha! I can only agree with Hans. Except that I _am_ a (BrE) native speaker. wikip thinks the “on the rise” sense is specifically Brit — which half agrees with early comments above.
My Chambers 1972 dead trees dictionary [**] gives (un-hyphenated form) both senses, “continuous progress” first, no indication either is specifically Br or Am.
Of course logic has nothing to do with meaning, but if it’s level, I don’t see how it could be up and up.
[**] We could start another rabbit on ‘upmost’ being an eggcorn for ‘utmost’.
AntC: I read “up” as in up from hiding, out in the open. Contrast with AAVE “on the down low”, meaning ‘in secret’, specifically referring to closeted homosexuality.
Green has it going back to 1863, mostly U.S., mostly 20th century. He also has the meaning ‘in an increasingly favourable, lucky, pleasant situation’, with fewer attestations.
But neither Green nor the OED is any help on how “on the up-and-up” came to mean “legit”. I connect it vaguely with “aboveboard”, which I supposed is a little like your “out in the open” suggestion.
MW has on the up chiefly British: moving toward an improved or better state
Google Books has it in a 1920 US source
I am familiar with “on the up” and “on the level”. At the date of this 2003 post I don’t think I had discovered LH, and I think it was only much later that I discovered “on the up and up” could mean the same thing as “on the level” rather than “on the up”.
We now have three things: (a) on the up (b) on the up-and-up = increasing (c) on the up-and-up = honest. Which came first and how each influenced the others are interesting questions I have no idea how to answer.
Card-players’ jargon, maybe?
i’ve heard mollymooly’s (b) over the past few years here in nyc (mainly from people in their 30s and younger) – i’m not sure i ever heard it before that. my gut feeling is that at least here, it’s likely a result of people hearing the british (a), and melding it with the established u.s. (c), which they’ve heard but don’t use.
i think something similar has happened with “out of pocket” being used for “out of control / excessive” – a melding of “out of line”/”out of control” with a heard-but-not-used “out of pocket” in its established meaning of “broke / penniless”.
The “honest” sense was the only one I knew until now, and like Jerry I assumed the metaphor was like “aboveboard”.
Since 2003, “on the up and up” has been covered at Not One-Off Britishisms and Separated by a Common Language. One comment at Separated by a Common Language antedated the “improving” sense to 1906 in an American source!
Since neither the OED nor Green’s yet includes the simple “on the up”, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s newer than the others. Lynne Murphy tried to investigate, but it’s extremely difficult to search for “on the up” while excluding “on the up and up” as well as “on the up slope/grade/side/etc.” Actually, “on the up(-)grade” is also a long-established phrase for “improving, increasing” and must have been interacting with the others, although it has fallen off sharply since about 1960 according to ngrams.
I don’t think mollymooly’s 1920 US source is really an example of “on the up” as a phrase, though. In the context
I read “the up” as referring to the “ups” mentioned in the previous sentence; it doesn’t show that “on the up” would be used as a phrase without that context.
Lynne Murphy tried to investigate, but it’s extremely difficult to search for “on the up” while excluding “on the up and up” as well as “on the up slope/grade/side/etc.”
For the U.S., the first of the 12 hits for “on the up PUNC” at COHA is from the New Yorker, Talk of the Town, Nov. 2, 1929: “ALL this pother about hissing, with Jane Cowl making faces at Christopher Morley and Stok[o]wski shaking a finger presthsinw [no clue] at his audience, may lead to some good after all. Hissing is on the up. In most cases, we dislike any noise whatsoever in theatre or concert hall; but we disagree with Miss Cowl about the sanctity of art. Art deserves an even break and that’s all.” I think that’s more likely to be “on the rise” than “honest”.
The second is from the 1931 film The Royal Bed. It’s confusing (I’ll paste it in here if people want), but I think it may be a transcription error for “on the way up”.
The third, from the Christian Science Monitor on Jan. 10, 1944, clearly means “on the rise”. “The largest industrial plant in Massachusetts, the River Works of the General Electric Company at West Lynn, reported its labor demand continuing on the up.”
There are 18 hits for “on the up PUNC” at COCA. Both meanings of “on the up-and-up” seem to be available.
Of course those results can’t be compared to numbers from much broader searches such as Google Books.
presthsinw [no clue]
It’s prestissimo. And I agree the meaning is surely ‘on the rise’; good find.
Prestissimo, of course! (Actually the “of course” is that I could have looked it up myself.)
Here‘s an ngram comparison for “on the up” at the end of a sentence. The UK was way ahead of the US from the ’60s into the ’00s.