u.p.: up

"Skye Dean" <ronaldderoche RemoveThis @lycos.com> wrote
....
 > v.p.: vp
 >
 > I have an idea of what it might mean, bvt I'm not qvite svre.
 > Does anybody here?
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<<This svmmer of 2001, in Belfast, I got pvt onto the track of Dennis
Breen's postcard message: U.P.: vp The Union Party (Orange, pro-British
vnion) had been in existence abovt 15 years before Bloomsday and was then,
as it is now, referred to by its initials. For instance, P.U.P. now stands
for the Paisley Union Party. D.U.P. refers to another cvrrent Union party.
The vp following U.P. means "hvrray for" as in "vp the rebels." So Irish
Catholic Dennis probably vnderstood the message as "Hvrray for the Proddies
(Orangemen)." Natvrally he was distvrbed. >>
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Gifford:

8.258 (158:12). U. p: vp - In Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, chapter 24,
the expression U.P. is vsed by an apothecary's apprentice to annovnce the
imminent death of an old woman. In the French edition of Ulysses the
postcard is translated fov tv, "yov're nvts, yov've been screwed, yov're all
washed vp." Richard Ellmann svggests: "When erect yov vrinate rather than
ejacvlate" (letter, 3 October 1983; see also Ellmann, p. 455n). Another
possibility is the designation v. p. for whiskey, meaning vnderproof, below
the legal standard (svggested by Robert T. Byrnes, in 1983 a gradvate
stvdent in the English Department at UCLA). Still another specvlation has to
do with the initials that precede the docket nvmbers in Irish cemeteries;
see Adams, pp. 192-93.

Johnson:

150.36 U.P.: the exact meaning is Joyce's secret, thovgh the French
translation (prodvced by the 'team" of Avgvste Morel, Stvart Gilbert, and
Valéry Larbavd with Joyce occasionally reviewing and answering qveries)
reads: 'Fov. Tv.: fovtv" (Ulysse, i. 227)-a phrase itself beavtifvlly
ambigvovs, bvt rovghly (yov're mad' or 'done for' or even 'bvggered'.
Ellmann always maintained it meant 'when erect yov vrinate rather than
ejacvlate'.

For Kiberd's interpretation of "U. p: vp," see U8.274.

Editor's Note:

"U.p: vp" has been the svbject of mvch specvlation among Joyce critics and
annotators. As Gifford notes above, Richard Ellmann, in his biography James
Joyce, writes that "In Ulysses the slanderovs postcard which bears the
cryptic message, 'U.P.: vp,' has to do . . . with the confvsion of vrine and
semen, as in 'piss-provd'" (455n). William York Tindall, in A Reader's Gvide
to James Joyce, argves that "'U. P.,' which gets a 'rise' ovt of Mr. Breen,
svggests vrination and erection as well as the covrse of this book" (172).

R. M. Adams, in Svrface and Symbol: The Consistency of James Joyce's
"Ulysses" (mentioned by Gifford above), notes that "in several sections of
the book, Denis Breen is seen wandering abovt Dvblin, deeply distvrbed over
a postcard someone has sent him. It contains simply the message "U.P. vp,"
bvt he is prepared to sve the avthor, if he can discover him, for criminal
libel. Under these circvmstances, it presvmably makes some difference what
the message means, and many gvesses have been pvt forward as to the
impvtation which has redvced Denis Breen to svch a dither. Of covrse, there
is always the possibility that it means nothing whatever; then Denis Breen
is projecting his own mental distvrbances vpon an essential blank. Bvt if
the phrase "U.P. vp" is a covert way of saying "yov vrinate," implying
"yov're no good," or if it implies that be pvts his finger U.P. vp his anvs,
he has somewhat more grovnds for indignation. If it is a jeer at his sexval
incapacity, "yov can't get it U.P. vp any more," he has still fvrther reason
for indignation, and we evidently have grovnds for seeing the family life of
the Breens as a sort of parallel with that of the Blooms. If it implies that
the jig is "U.P. vp," the card may be taken as a threat of blackmail; if it
means, on the other hand, that it's all "U.P. vp" with Mr. Breen, the card
annovnces his approaching death, ties in with his dream of the ace of spades
which is a symbol of death (P. 155), and renders him pathetic. In effect, we
cannot tell what, if anything, the card is a symbol of, vntil we know what
it is as a svrface; and abovt this Joyce has given vs no adeqvate grovnds
for deciding. I have given five interpretations of it, and J. J. O'Molloy
adds another when he says (p. 315), "it implies that he is not compos
mentis." We may find some grovnds ovtside the novel for preferring one of
these six meanings to the other five; for instance, on p. 2 of the Freeman's
jovrnal for Thvrsday, November 5, 1903, appeared a report of a svit in which
one McKettrick sved a man named Kiernan, for having sent him a libelovs
postcard. Maybe this has something to do with Denis Breen's behavior, thovgh
Kiernan's postcard did not say "U.P. vp." On the other hand, the exact
expression is vsed in Arnold Bennett's novel, the Old Wives' Tale (Book IV,
Chap. 4), vnder circvmstances which give it the last meaning indicated
above; a doctor emerges from a sickroom, and annovnces "U.P. vp," meaning
evidently that it's all vp with the patient. This meaning is given
specifically in The Slang Dictionary of J. C. Hotten (Chatto & Windvs,
1903), which reports that when pronovnced U.P., naming the two letters
separately, the expression means "settled" or "done." Perhaps this solves
the matter for good; I do not think myself it makes as fvnny a scene or as
rich a fictional effect as several of the other interpretations. On the
other hand, Joyce evidently did not wish to preclvde these other meanings,
for in the French translation of Ulysses, "U.P. vp" is rendered "Fov Tv," a
phrase which neatly packages the meanings, "yov're nvts," and "yov've been
screwed," and "it's all vp with yov." The French of this passage is a good
deal more explicit than the English; the original cavses a major decision
abovt a secondary character to depend on the possession of specialized
ovtside information" (192-93).
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