- published: 03 Jan 2009
- views: 4381795
"Shut up" is a direct command with a meaning similar to "be quiet"', but which is commonly perceived as an angrier and more forceful demand to stop making noise or otherwise communicating. The phrase is probably a shortened form of "shut your mouth up", and its use is generally considered impolite.
Prior to the Twentieth century, the phrase "shut up" was rarely used as an imperative, and had a different meaning altogether. To say that someone was "shut up" meant that they were locked up, quarantined, or held prisoner. For example, several passages in the Bible instruct that if a priest determines that a person shows certain symptoms of illness, "then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days". This meaning was also used in the sense of closing something, such as a business, and it is also from this use that the longer phrase "shut up your mouth" likely originated.
One source has indicated this:
However, Shakespeare's use of the phrase in King Lear is limited to a reference to the shutting of doors at the end of Scene II, with the characters of Regan and Cornwall both advising the King, "Shut up your doors". The earlier meaning of the phrase, to close something, is widely used in Little Dorrit, but is used in one instance in a manner which foreshadows the modern usage:
Okay, all right, oh no
This one, this one, this one
Heads of state who ride and wrangle
Who look at your face from more than one angle
Can cut you from their bloated budgets
Like sharpened knives through chicken McNuggets
Now, heads of state who ride and wrangle
Who look at your face from more than one angle
Can cut you from their bloated budgets
Like sharpened knives through chicken McNuggets
(Shut the fuck)
Up
Yo, shut the fuck up
(Shut the fuck)
Right, right, learn to buck up
(Shut the fuck)
Right, shut the fuck up, hey, ho
(Shut the fuck)
Now, now learn to buck up
1, 2, a-1, 2, 3, 4
Now, nimble fingers that dance on numbers
Will eat your children and steal your thunder
While heavy torsos that heave and hurl
Will crunch like nuts in the mouths of squirrels
Now, nimble fingers that dance on numbers
Will eat your children and steal your thunder
While heavy torsos that heave and hurl
Will crunch like nuts in the mouths of squirrels
(Shut the fuck)
Up
Yo, shut the fuck up
(Shut the fuck)
Right now learn to buck up
(Shut the fuck)
Right, shut the fuck up yeah, ho, yow
(Shut the fuck)
Yow, yow, yow
Learn to buck up
Now, simple feet that flicker like fire
And burn like candles in smoky spires
Do more to turn my joy to sadness
Than somber thoughts of burning planets
Now, clever feet that flicker like fire
And burn like candles in smoky spires
Do more to turn my joy to sadness
Than somber thoughts of burning planets
(Shut the fuck)
All right, okay
I don't wanna
(Shut the fuck)
I don't wanna hear it that's right
(Shut the fuck)
Oh no, okay, I don't wanna
(Shut the fuck)
I don't wanna
(Shut the fuck)
Yeah, ho, yow
(Shut the fuck)
I don't wanna, I don't wanna
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh