Lace up

Lace up

I try to always select English expressions and phrasal verbs that are going to be useful to you in your daily lives. Today is not one of those days. I’m going to give you a phrasal verb that I use maybe once a year. I checked the archives and I have used it exactly once in the voluminous history of Plain English.

“Lace up.”

If you’re wearing shoes, look down at your feet. The strings that you tie together —those are shoelaces , or “laces” for short. What other types of footwear have laces? Boots have laces. Ice skates have laces. Roller skates and roller blades have laces.

That might be about it. I am not the expert—far from it—but I think some dresses have laces in the back? I can think of a scene from the movie “Titanic,” in which Rose’s mother is tightly pulling and tying laces on the back of her dress. So you can lace up a dress. Boxing gloves sometimes have laces—your coach can lace up a pair of boxing gloves for you.

But for the most part , you’re going to use this with footwear . Now if you go to your closet and pull out some shoes or boots, if you put them on your feet, and if you tie the laces, you tie your shoes. That’s not “lace up.”

Lace up is when you first put the laces onto the shoes and fasten them onto your feet. You can also use this if you put on a pair of shoes after a long time of not using them. But if you take your shoes off, and then put them on again later, or the next day, you don’t lace them up again…they’re ready for you to tie.

But if one of your shoelaces breaks—or if you buy a new pair—you’ll lace your shoes up. You put the laces on for the first time and fasten the shoe into place on your foot.

Very often, this is used as a metaphor for doing some kind of sport or activity that involves shoes with laces. And that’s how I used it today. I was talking about the new Nike and adidas running shoes —the ones the super-fast marathoners wear.

Those shoes are rated for just one competition : they’re not designed to hold up for more than one long race. So I said if you want to wear these shoes, you’ll be lacing up a new pair every time you run a marathon .

You’ll lace up a new pair because you’re going to be using a brand-new pair, you’re going to be putting the laces on for the first time, every time you run a race.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s probably getting cool right about now. And if you live really far north, you might be getting ready to lace up your ice skates. In the coldest places, the rivers or local ponds and lakes might freeze over come December or January. And you’ll be ready to lace up your ice skates. That’s a metaphor that means, you’ll be ready to put on your skates for the first time in a while.

Do you really put new laces on every year? Maybe, maybe not. But this is a metaphorical way of saying, you’re going to start doing that activity. You’re going to start ice skating again.

I told you about my road trip to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago. Prior to that, I hadn’t been on a long hike in many years. But it was fun to lace up my hiking boots again and go on a challenging hike.

Was it fun to put the laces on? No; I mean, I don’t remember. But this is a metaphor for starting the activity, so yes, it was fun to get my equipment ready , to get out there again and go hiking. It was fun to lace up my hiking boots after so long.

If you’re a boxer, and if you have a boxing coach, you might have lace-up gloves. But it’s not possible to lace up a pair of boxing gloves by yourself. Close your eyes and picture a boxing glove with laces going down one side. Imagine yourself tying the laces on one hand. Now here’s a question: how are you going to tie the laces on the other hand, if the first hand has a boxing glove on it?

That would be why most people buy Velcro or other types of gloves. You need a coach or someone else to tie the lace up gloves.

See you next time!

I have run three marathons. I will not be lacing up for a fourth. But if any of you have run in one of these new shoes—maybe not these elite shoes, but a previous generation —do let me know. I’m curious to see what you think about them. So leave us a comment in our Facebook group. If you’re not in there yet, you can join at PlainEnglish.com/Facebook —totally free.

And that’s all for today. You know, just talking about marathons—I think I have burned a lot of calories . I bet you have just by listening. And it’s a good thing too because on Thursday, we’ll be compensating —maybe even over-compensating —because we’ll be talking about Twinkies. See you then.