Good thread idea,
Mark!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bombadil Goes Boating
'If one day the King returns, in upping he may take you,
brand your yellow bill, and less lordly make you!'
|
Tom to Old Swan of Elver-isle.
Swan upping is apparently a royal prerogative around Oxford, and so it is of course a cultural and historical marker rather than a philological survival. We don't up our swans here, not even those in Stratford, Ontario, so I didn't know the usage.