by Kate Woodford

I recently heard a journalist reflecting on the associations that we have with these opposing words. ‘Up,’ he said, ‘is good’ and ‘down is bad’. While this isn’t always the case, it’s certainly true that the words ‘high’ and ‘up’ often convey positive things, both on their own and in phrases, while ‘low’ and ‘down’ usually suggest the opposite. This post looks at this interesting area of the language.

Let’s start with ‘up’. We find ‘up’ in two nice phrases related to improvement. If a situation is now improving after a difficult or unsuccessful period, we might use the phrasal verb look up, especially by saying ‘things are looking up’. In UK English, we also convey this by saying that something is on the up (or more emphatically, on the up and up):

After a tricky couple of years, I’m pleased to say things are looking up.

Her political career by this time was on the up.

Business is on the up and up.

The adjective down, meanwhile, (or the more emphatic, informal idiom down in the dumps) can be used to mean ‘sad and without hope’ and something that gets you down makes you feel sad and without hope:

You seem a bit down. Is everything all right?

Sometimes, when I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps, I just need to go for a walk.

Having so little money was really starting to get me down.

The adjective ‘up’ meaning ‘happy’ is rather less common than the use of ‘down’ for unhappy, but is used in the phrase up and down, meaning ‘having moods that often change, sometimes happy and sometimes sad’:

I’m a bit up and down since he left, to be honest.

We also say that someone or something experiences ups and downs, meaning both good times and bad times. This phrase can be used of many situations but is especially common when talking about long relationships or careers:

Like every married couple, we’ve had our ups and downs.

‘High’ certainly has positive associations. It means ‘very good’ in phrases such as ‘high quality’ and ‘high standards/principles’. ‘High’ also means ‘being important and having power’ in combinations such as ‘high rank’ and ‘high office’. As you might expect, the opposite in all of these word combinations is ‘low’:

We are lucky in having access to high quality healthcare.

They have a very low standard of living.

He rose to the highest rank in the military.

Like the adjective ‘down’, low can be used to mean ‘sad and without hope’:

She seemed a little low, so I invited her round for a cup of coffee.

Finally, we talk about highs and lows in much the same way that we say ups and downs, meaning both good times and bad times:

Anyone familiar with the emotional highs and lows of new parenthood will love this book.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and that the week ahead contains more highs than lows and more ups than downs!