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Comment by blargey | Hacker News Reader

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blargey

Are you feeling down, or are things looking up for you?

Do you have people to look up to, or do you spend more time looking down on others?

Are you on top of the world, or working your way up from the bottom?

Etc, etc. It's suffused throughout our language, and not just this one language, either.

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Are you down for looking for counterexamples? Do you want to get to the bottom of why people cherry pick examples for their argument? Is this what you want to base your argument on, or should it be grounded in a more complete linguistic analysis?

Leszek, I don’t think your reply invalidates what blargey said. Showing that "down" can also be neutral, impactful or enthusiastic (like "down for" or "get to the bottom of") is useful, but it adds nuance rather than disproving the broader pattern that up = good / down = bad runs deep across languages.

It's all just anecdotes vs. anecdotes. The alleged "broader pattern" is not proven by one any more than it is disproven by the other. (For what it's worth, I do think there is a cultural pattern, especially in biblical metaphors, but in general use it's far weaker than what TFA is making it out to be.)

It certainly disproves that it's a pattern without exceptions, and therefore invalidates or at least questions the idea that every instance of up and down (like which way up north is) has to be mapped to good and bad.

Interestingly, except for your first example, yours are all related to building or stacking things and returning to a fundamental, dare I say foundational, aspect.

Also "being down" to do something likely came from writing your name down as a commitment, or putting a bet down, committing your money.

It's up in the air, I could be High as a kite!

What’s up with people thinking that the word “up” cannot have negative connotations?

Their thinking is all messed down.

It's wrong in any case. The center is the most important part.

Are you African by any chance?

Nope just an American old enough to remember real physical paper maps. You don't put the most important part on the edge. (I believe the Chinese also use "central" to describe the leader or foremost member of a group though. It's fascinating to think about how language might unconsciously influence behavior)

there is no concept of "center" in the up-down paradigm discussed here. there IS center in other directionality-related abstractions however. like the center of the city, or the axis of the wheel, a centerpiece of an artwork. but the center-perimeter paradigm is very similar to the up-down one. if you want to put those 2 together you will get the vision of the mountain of which center is on the top, and its perimeter is at the bottom.

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