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Never give down

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Why is it never give up instead of never give down? I would be going down. I would be downing tools. I would be among the downtrodden. I would need uplifting. I would need to keep going up. I would need to keep (not give) my chin up. Never back down makes more sense. Never going to let you down makes more sense. Sorry for the rant. But never goes with down in this sense. We are never going down.

I started examining the etymology of "never give up" and "give up" and it occured to me that it makes sense if I say never give up away. I would need to keep (it) up. I had my eureka moment. I was wrong for ranting and now I feel silly. I was about to give up. I was about to lose it. There is a hidden away in there and context matters and language is not always literal and language is quirky, idiomatic and nuanced. I say give my best though and that does not mean give my best away.

There is also the phrase never give in. I asked my friend Bard to tell me about the difference between never give up and never give in and this is what he shared: "never give up" is more general and can be applied to a variety of situations, while "never give in" is more specific to situations where someone is being pressured to do something they don't want to do. So I would not give up my dreams but I would not give in to peer pressure.

I found an interesting discussion on an English language forum. Someone had tattooed the phrase, "never don't give up" on their arm. It is a double negation and is wrong but could also be a joke. Someone even said it was translated from Polish and the person got it wrong. Kevin James is known for using the phrase "never don't give up" in his stand-up comedy routine. He often uses it to encourage his audience to persevere and never give up on their dreams, no matter how difficult they may seem.

Maybe one day I will give a motivational speech on my youtube channel and call it "Never give down". Life can be a struggle sometimes when all we really want to do is snuggle. Sometimes life does get you down and gives you a frown. I may be down but I am no clown. Do not give up and wonder if you should quit your day job and do stand up. Life is like a yoyo, up and down, but never give up because we put the spinning in winning.
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