Redd up

Posted by ESC on March 01, 2008 at 11:35:

In Reply to: Redd up posted by Victoria S Dennis on March 01, 2008 at 07:47:

: : : I had always thought that 'redd up' (to clean or straighten in Pittsburgheese) was a local slang. I never knew its orgin. It is used widely in the Greater Pittsburgh (PA) area.

: : I'm from the mountains of West Virginia but I'd never heard this term. However, it says here...

: : RED UP, REDDING UP, RID UP -- to ready or to clean up. "We went to 'redding up' (after a strong wind had lifed the roof, sending moss and dried chinking mud down on the floor). From "Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech Based on the Research of Horace Kephart," edited by Harold J. Farwell Jr., and J. Karl Nicholas (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 1993).

: It exists also in Scots and Northumbrian dialect. My SOED says it is a Middle English word, related to Dutch "redden", which means the same. (VSD)

I reckon that's where we got it.