Trip Over for Trip Up

[Lombro2]

RJ, Ike and Kattrup, let me just say you are all correct. Thank you, Kattrup. I have to bow to those not from English-speaking countries who would have picked up the language later than someone who happened to speak another language just in the home.

RJ is right about my example being a bad one, the reverse in meaning. Another Snippet View error on my part. No one in any era would likely say he “tripped up on the right solution”. (“Upon” maybe.) And you’re right about the Diary using “trip up” would NOT be an undeniable faux-pas, not for a Victorian writer creative enough to come up with “bumbling buffoon” and “one off instance.

Ike, I agree with you that your question is the crux of the matter, along with the original “intransitive” use. It’s not common in modern times like “one off instance” and “bumbling buffoon”.

Why would a modern-day (1990s) hoaxer refer to Sir Jim tripping over himself rather than tripping up himself?

[rjpalmer]

Why would a modern-day (1990s) hoaxer refer to Sir Jim tripping over himself rather than tripping up himself?

At the risk of being a royal pain, Ike, I do think your question is inappropriately and deceptively worded.

Lombro has not shown that the usage is Victorian, yet your question implies that the wording is odd in reference to a 'modern-day (1990s) hoaxer' in way that it is not odd in reference to a Victorian or Edwardian hoaxer or even odd in reference to James Maybrick himself.

It's odd, full stop.

As such, the Modern Hoax Posse is in no more need of an answer to your question than you are, or the 'old hoax' theorists are.

That said, as a board-certified member of the Modern Hoax Posse, I can inform you that this question doesn't particularly interest us.

After all, you've spent 16+ years characterizing our prime suspect as an inept writer.

Further, his ex-missus was known to crank out the occasional malaprop.

Finally, some other modern hoaxer could have been "staying in character"--using deliberately clumsy wording to demonstrate that Sir Jim did not have the lilting linguistic skills of his much-envied brother, Fred Weatherly.

[Iconoclast]

Which certainly isn't the same meaning that the diarist is attempting to convey.

As I say, it's not my horse in the race and I also now realise I didn't properly digest Lombro2's point properly when he (one of my occasional nestlings) raised it with me some weeks ago.

I do think that perhaps the most interesting question is the one I posed in #13:

Why would a modern-day (1990s) hoaxer refer to Sir Jim tripping over himself rather than tripping up himself?

By the way, I wouldn't want anyone to think that missing out on a detailed education at secondary school meant that I now have LOVE and HATE tattooed onto my knuckles.

It's actually NUFC and MAM. (with the full stop as a sop to what little I learned during my wasted years in the educational wilderness).

[rjpalmer]

Hmmm. Did the Victorians use "trip up" when linking to an object and "trip over" intransitively?

One last observation, Ike.

You're not the only one with a nest of correspondents, and this morning a correspondent requested that we reread Lombro's lone example of this alleged usage more carefully, believing that he has misread it.

Keely, writing in 1887, seems to have been using "tripped over" in the sense of "stumbled across". Which led to a positive--not a negative result.

According to this interpretation, the sentence should be read: "In seeking to solve the great problems which have baffled me, from time to time, in my progressive researches, I have often been struck by the fact that I have, to all seeming, accidentally, stumbled across their solution".

Hence, Keely goes on to write that his highest power of concentration failed to attain the results he sought, which "at last, seeming accident revealed."

In other words, the solutions came to Keely by some sort of accident. He didn't 'trip up' or 'trip over' in the sense of a calamity or by being thwarted. To the contrary, he succeeded, if only by accident.

Which certainly isn't the same meaning that the diarist is attempting to convey.

The weekend is beckoning.

[Iconoclast]

Good Morning, Ike.
Notice the date of the following musical review.
It's strange that this Victorian writer fears that the error will trip up beginners, rather than trip over beginners.

Hmmm. Did the Victorians use "trip up" when linking to an object and "trip over" intransitively?

I have no idea, and it's not my horse in the race this one so I won't be losing too much sleep over it. To be honest, prior to being schooled, above, I didn't know what 'intransitive' meant (victim of a misspent Newcastle education in the 1970s, sadly). Still, every day's a schoolday!

It's an interesting question, though: why would a modern-day (1990s) hoaxer refer to Sir Jim tripping over himself rather than tripping up himself?

[rjpalmer]

Good Morning, Ike.

Notice the date of the following musical review.



It's strange that this Victorian writer fears that the error will trip up beginners, rather than trip over beginners.

[rjpalmer]

Hi RJ

As I understand Lombro’s meaning, he asks not about the existence of the phrases “to trip over X” or “to trip up X”, but about their transitivity.

The forger uses “trip over” as an intransitive verb, and not with a literal meaning, but as a metaphor more commonly associated with “trip up”.

So I believe Lombro is looking for Victorian examples of trip over/trip up used intransitively, i.e. without an object.

All the examples you’ve provided are transitive.

Hi Kattrup,

Okay, I'll play along, but I don't really accept the argument.

It is true that the journalist writing about Gladstone and Bright in the example in Post 4 uses the transitive form of the verb-- "to trip up the Government," but it's still a metaphor.

The Government doesn't actually stumble and fall because of the wording in a bill. One could reword the sentiment using an intransitive form of the verb, but the underlying metaphorical idea would still be the same. Government Trip up, instead of Government trip over.

What Lombro has done is to find a single example of someone (Keely) using an intransitive form of the verb (trip over) metaphorically and is then claiming that this was the understood Victorian idiom.

Yes, he's making this claim, but is it true?

Would a Victorian say:

"If the City Police lay a trap, he will trip over"?

[Iconoclast]

There is something in this (I have often remarked - internally - on reading the scrapbook that that expression feels unusual to the modern eye) but we need more information which - generally speaking - needs to help inform us of the likelihood that:

• The term 'trip over' used without an object would be common practice in Victorian England (or America), and that
• It would be noticeably atavistic in the late 1980s, early 1990s (primarily in Merseyside, England!).

Establishing this, we might at least make some attempt at excluding Mike Barrett from any list of mooted hoaxers which is the first dream I cling to on waking each morning.

(The second is that we finally prove that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, the third that we finally prove that Jack Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, the fourth that Newcastle win the FA Cup, and the fifth that I can function long enough to make a cup of tea and remember my dog's name.)

[Kattrup]

"Tripping up" often refers to something done to another person; while "tripping over" is something done to oneself.

"He tripped up the constable with his crutches"; "he tripped over his own two feet." Keely tripped up his detractors; Keely tripped over the solution that was staring him in the face.

The phrase depends on whether one is the subject, or the object of the tripping.

Hi RJ

As I understand Lombro’s meaning, he asks not about the existence of the phrases “to trip over X” or “to trip up X”, but about their transitivity.

The forger uses “trip over” as an intransitive verb, and not with a literal meaning, but as a metaphor more commonly associated with “trip up”.

So I believe Lombro is looking for Victorian examples of trip over/trip up used intransitively, i.e. without an object.

All the examples you’ve provided are transitive.

[rjpalmer]

But yes, you should leave it up to me and Caz.

I certainly will. I'll leave you with this as well.

"Is it two days ago since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the king? Draw, you rogue, for though it be night yet the moon shines."

King Lear (c. 1605)

[Lombro2]

It's no different than the "one off" debate but it's a more interesting usage of a phrase. There is a difference here and an evolution of the language usage with "trip over" and "trip up" with and without an object after it. I personally don't see a difference between one-off as a quantity of one or as a singular, specially designed product when we're talking about one strike off someone's head.

But yes, you should leave it up to me and Caz. We're gifted in the textual areas. She can see people's text in colours, and I can assess text better than most, even English professors, because I had English pretty much as a second language, I am more visual, and I am not a natural speed reader or speed writer, so I still tend to measure words more than most. Biblical studies with various translations doesn't hurt either.

So, if one can't ascribe a seemingly-anachronistic phrase like "one off instance" to James Maybrick, who came from a more literate age, why do I now have to ascribe a "weirdly" anachronistic-for-today phrase to Michael Barrett? I would still agree to agree that the Author got it passably right, just to be fair.

[rjpalmer]

Google Books gives three examples of “tripped over their solution” around 1889 but none of “tripped up (on) their/the solution”.

I don't feel very inclined to spend much time on this, but I'm only finding a single example of what you mean, repeated in three different sources: someone named Keely writing in The Scientific Arena in June-July 1887, "a monthly magazine dedicated to scientific and philosophical teaching."

I believe “trip up” took over is because it’s less common to trip going up so the phrase was used less often, mostly for tripping “up on the stairs, and so was more available for other usage.

Well, I'll leave it to you and Caz. I think you're comparing apples to oranges. I'm seeing literally dozens of examples in the 1870s and 80s of people "tripping up" other people...with ropes, walking sticks, their feet, crutches, etc.


"Tripping up" often refers to something done to another person; while "tripping over" is something done to oneself.

"He tripped up the constable with his crutches"; "he tripped over his own two feet." Keely tripped up his detractors; Keely tripped over the solution that was staring him in the face.

The phrase depends on whether one is the subject, or the object of the tripping.

I suspect that the hoaxer means that he fears becoming the object of Abberline's tripping. It's weirdly worded, maybe even a malaprop of sorts, but I don't see anything Victorian about it.

[Lombro2]

Trip up did exist for “making someone make a mistake”. Otherwise you’re saying “I tripped over someone”. You’d have to say “I tripped someone over” to make sense.

But “trip up” as in “making a mistake” oneself appears to have supplanted “trip over” in the 20th Century. Although both existed in the 19th Century, “trip over” dominated. Google Books gives three examples of “tripped over their solution” around 1889 but none of “tripped up (on) their/the solution”.

I believe “trip up” took over is because it’s less common to trip going up so the phrase was used less often, mostly for tripping “up on the stairs, and so was more available for other usage.

[rjpalmer]

I think using "trip up" in the Diary instead of "trip over" would have been an undeniable, unequivocable trip up for the Author.

Hi Lombro.

What am I missing?

Hasn't the term "trip up" as a metaphor for "to trick," or "to entrap," or to force into a blunder, been around for ages?

I set aside a few minutes and quickly found several examples from the Victorian era. Here are two.

Glasgow Evening Citizen, 5 July1863




London Evening Standard, 3 May 1883:




As for "trip over," the diarist's choice of wording is arguably clumsy, but what makes you think the wording would have been less clumsy and more coherent in 1888/1889?

You don't cite any examples of this usage to back-up your claim that it was the forerunner of “trip up.”

Are you arguing that by merely leaving out the preposition "to," the diarist's doggerel is somehow Victorian?

[caz]

Another question for Anne Graham then, Lombro2, by anyone who still believes her fingerprints are all over the diary, and that she tripped over, or tripped up - presumably while tripping on magic mushrooms.

The language used in the diary has always struck me as more than odd in places.

I still wonder why a dictionary was not used if the Barretts did the deed.

And there's the poste haste error in your extract above, three times.

What's the betting that the real culprit made the same error when writing Poste House?

Love,

Caz
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