Up we go again

Add comment May 27th, 2009

As a follow-up to my previous offering on “sign-up,” a colleague asked:

“What if a protester was holding up a sign? What if a protester was robbing a preschooler? Would those be holdups or hold-ups?”

Wouldn’t it be nice if such things were consistent? But no, the answer is “holdups,” one word.

The same goes for the slang synonym for armed robbery, “stickup.”

So what’s the holdup on sign-up? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because robbing has been around longer than writing.