# "Red up" as a synonum for "tidy up" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2001, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538 "2001-03-02T19:45:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/21 "2013-04-01T14:05:34Z")
Do zombies say “redd up”? (It seems very meta to call “zombie” on your own thread!) ---
**Author:** ![BlakeTyner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/22 "2013-04-01T19:23:10Z")
The one-act play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell uses the phrase at one point. The setting is never explicitly mentioned, but it is rural, and one character mentions homesteading “in the Dakotas.” And it’s cold and snowy. In Texas, I’ve never heard it. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/23 "2013-04-01T20:16:38Z")
In her autobiography _We Shook the Family Tree_, Hildegarde Dolson discusses this expression. She grew up in Pennsylvania, and considers it a useful phrase: “To tidy a room sounds too prissy, and to clean a room implies more than I am prepared to give.” She spells it redd. It’s a very funny book, by the way. It covers the period from approximately 1909-1929. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/24 "2013-04-01T21:15:52Z")
> [@D18](#): > > Do zombies say “redd up”? (It seems very meta to call “zombie” on your own thread!) A-_ha_! I know what you were doing 12 years ago on March the second, at 2:45 PM. Good alibi. Unless you had someone else sign in and post while you murdered that old lady. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/25 "2013-04-01T23:22:09Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > A-_ha_! I know what you were doing 12 years ago on March the second, at 2:45 PM. > > Good alibi. Unless you had someone else sign in and post while you murdered that old lady. Heh, heh, heh. Let’s just say I may have had a few things to redd up. Yeah. Redd up. That’s what I was doin’, see? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/26 "2013-04-02T01:35:41Z")
My grandmother, from Center County, Pennsylvania used the expression. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538/27 "2013-04-02T14:36:49Z")
I’m from north central Ohio and grew up hearing this term – and yes, full on Scottish/Irish extraction. Once we went to Kentucky to visit my stepmom’s extended relatives. One of the nice ladies there had put together a really nice spread (considering it didn’t appear she had much in the way of assets, she sure managed to put out a lot of really great food). My stepmom and I asked what we could do to help her, and I could swear she used the term “red up” to refer to the process of taking everything out of pots and pans and putting them in serving bowls on the table. Is my memory fuzzy and there was another “hills of Kentucky” term for that or could there be another usage for “red up”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-up-as-a-synonum-for-tidy-up/56538.md?page=1)