I was reading about the story of the markup languages and noticed that the term markup came from the phrase to mark up.
I'm confused about what does up mean in this context. I learned in school that the word up means all in many phrases. For examples, eat up, and drink up. I'm not sure if up means all in to mark up because what is the meaning of "all" in this context?
Best Answer
Mark up is a phrasal verb. English has many of these. Mark up can have a different meaning than mark, though it is related in meaning.
The second word in a phrasal verb sometimes doesn't have a lot of meaning in itself, or clear relation to the first word, and in those cases is just a signal to change the meaning of the first word.
Up appears as the second word in a lot of phrasal verbs, e.g. make up, get up, shut up, write up, etc.
You are correct that up can mean all with certain verbs (e.g. finish up). It can also function as an intensifier (e.g. clean up), or mean something like "on it's own" (e.g. clear up).
To add confusion, sometimes a two-word verb can have a separate meaning phrasally, yet still be able to be used non-phrasally. A lot of times the difference in meaning depends if the subject is a person or a non-person.