Raise it--where?

Last night at the Venetian we had a dealer who could never say just "raise." Instead, it always had to be "Raise it up."

This annoys me. (Of course, so do about a million other things, which is why this blog exists.) In what other direction does she think one might raise it, other than "up"? Would somebody "raise it down," or "raise it sideways"?*

One might raise corn in one's garden; one does not "raise up" corn. One might raise a child**; one does not "raise up" a child. One might raise oneself by one's bootstraps; one does not "raise oneself up" by one's bootstraps. One might ask one's boss to raise one's salary; one does not ask one's boss to "raise up" one's salary. One suffering from gastroesophageal reflux disease might raise the head of his bed; he would not "raise up" the head of his bed.*** One might raise a ruckus; one does not "raise up" a ruckus.

Please, Miss, knock it off. A simple one-word announcement of "raise" is all we need to hear.



*This is not an original observation with me. I first read it in The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook, when I was in poker dealer school. But the fact that a specific admonishment against this odd phrasing has been for many years in the premiere guidebook for poker dealers means that this dealer should darn well know better.

**Some people object to the phrase "raise a child," arguing that one raises vegetables, but rears a child. Though I can be a nit-picking purist about a lot of things, especially with respect to language, that particular complaint goes beyond what I think is reasonable.

***Lest some wiseacre rush to the comments to point this out, I'll acknoweldge that the King James Bible has 41 instances of the phrase "raise up" (see here). But many of those are the intransitive verb instead of the transitive. More importantly, that was then (1611, to be exact), this is now. Such usage sounds quaint, redundant, and out of place to modern ears.


Addendum, May 25, 2008

My father, upon reading the above, sent me this email, which I trust he won't mind my sharing here:

Your blog reminded me of a Geography teacher from England who taught us
when I was in the army at the University of Washington. One day she was
discussing the industry in some part of South America, in which, as she put it,
the major occupation was rearing asses. She repeated this phrase at least a
dozen times during the class, and each time she did so the suppressed laughter
became less suppressed. She didn't seem to catch on to the fact that this was
humorous to the average American young man.

Adding more interest was the fact that each morning we did
calisthenics, and that one of the exercises lent itself admirably to the name,
"rearing asses", a fact that was not missed the next morning by some wise guys
among us.