Up Town

[sophie_1003]

Bit of a long winded one so I'll start at the beginning:-- At work today we were talking about what we're doing over Christmas and I said I'd be going up town on Christmas eve. The phrase 'up town' was questioned by my colleagues who said they'd never heard it to describe going out to pubs and clubs in town in the evening. I wondered if it was local to my town (work a few miles away in a different town) and posed about it on Facebook to which one person responded "You have a lot to learn lol" I had no idea what he meant by this so replied with a question mark to which he responded "Yeah lol". So two questions-- Is 'up town' a local phrase?
And can anyone shed any light on what the Facebook bloke was on about as he is clearly enjoying keeping me guessing!

[VHG]

Seems "up town" can also refer to Cocaine or Crack.

Search for "Uptown slang".

http://www.noslang.com/drugs/dictionary/u/

[VHG]

See number 6 here as well

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=downtown

[VHG]

p.s. Dont ask for a Pearl Necklace for Christmas !

[missprim]

Which just goes to show how certain phrases have changed!
My husband (who comes from down South) always says 'I'm going up the town' which is something I've not heard anyone say up here in the North. We usually say 'I'm going in to town.'

[Canary42]

Like Petula Clark, I always go downtown.

[VHG]

I was born in London (but now live in the Midlands0 but I would always say "I am going up town" if I was going to the city centre.

[andy-hughes]

I live in Stoke, and for some reason, you can go down to Tunstall, Burslem, Fenton, Longton, and Stoke, but you always go UP Hanley.

Why?

i have no idea, but that is what people who live here always say.

[lady-janine]

up town top ranking for me.

[jno]

are they north/south, andy?

Uptown/Midtown/Downtown have specific meanings in New York. For me (not in NYC) it was always going downtown, meaning the centre of town with shops, offices etc (and no doubt pubs and clubs).

[tonyav]

Have they seen ya in ya alter neck lj lol.

[shoota]

When I lived in Yorkshire I lived up on the tops so I always went 'down' to the town in the valley.
Now I live close to London I never go near the bloody place......

[lady-janine]

tony you said you'd never tell.

[andy-hughes]

jno - the towns are the Potrteries - all within a couple of miles of each other - Stoke is in the Midlands.

[sophie_1003]

Ahh ok; have never heard that one VHG! Maybe thats what he meant!
We are in the Midlands and 'up town' is generally out in the evening whereas 'popping in to town' is shopping during the day.

[jafsie]

I don't know anything about a drug connection, but the phrase usually refers to your geographical location.

If you live in Leeds you may go"down" to London for the weekend because London is south of Leeds.

If you live in Southampton you would go "up" to London which would be North.

I have never heard this phrase used in any other way

[boxtops]

when I was a child, and certainly in my mother's era, you always said you were going up to London, or down to the country, irrespective of whether you lived north or south of the city. London was always Up.

I first came across Up Town in "Up Town Top Rankin'" - but I never queried what it meant!

If we're going to the local town, we say we are going "down town"... this is Kent.

[bert_h]

Boxtops, that's absolutely right; but it's a rather dated idiom. It comes from the railways, where the 'up line' was always the one for trains going towards London, irrespective of its actual compass direction, and the 'down line' was the one away from London. It passed into common speech quite quickly.