Timeline for What does "up to" mean in "is first up to launch"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
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| May 1, 2023 at 11:32 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Matthew I don’t think that’s related to the meaning of ‘up’ relating to order of appearance/turns. The OED says first up in the sense of ‘first of all’ is originally Antipodean and first off American – to me, both just seem like variants of each other, a preposition added to give an extra syllable’s weight to first. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have up as it relates to order at all, so it doesn’t tell us anything about whether that sense actually comes from baseball. | |
| May 1, 2023 at 10:21 | comment | added | Matthew |
@Wyck I'm not sure about that. The *Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary gives the sentence adverbial use as informal British English, which seems very unlikely to be a baseball origin. The use here is slightly different (adverb of to be) but it's surely likely to have a common origin.
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| May 1, 2023 at 0:49 | comment | added | Wyck | I'm pretty sure this has to do with the order in which batters hit in baseball. The first player to do so is "first up", which comes from "stepping up to the plate". Being "first up" means they will have their turn to do something before others do - in terms of a sequence of events or a schedule. | |
| Apr 30, 2023 at 23:29 | comment | added | Paul Tanenbaum | Mine too. “First up” is now widely used to mean first to do a thing or to receive a service. “Next up” is analogous. | |
| Apr 30, 2023 at 10:11 | comment | added | Kaz | I also immediately thought that this is a carry over from baseball: first up to bat. Upvote. | |
| Apr 30, 2023 at 3:32 | comment | added | NewPlanet | What has also contributed to the confusion of my understanding it is the tone of certainty of "is first up to launch." Because the previous content already introduced that the company Astrobotic planned to take off in early May but has to postpone the launch; the postponing is a probability while the "is first up" is a certainty. The logic of expression might be too loose to accept. | |
| Apr 30, 2023 at 3:21 | vote | accept | NewPlanet | ||
| Apr 30, 2023 at 2:07 | history | answered | Mary | CC BY-SA 4.0 |