Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Teo]

Pick up your feet there, men!
The above sentence is quoted from a dictionary. There is no context.
What does "there" possibly mean? Can anyone give a context in which we can use the sentence in question?
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Thank you very much for your reply.

[redset]

It's like saying "you men, the ones over there". It's not really about distance, the speaker is probably someone in authority, most likely commanding some soldiers. He's basically saying "I am here, and you are over there. You are not with me, you are responsible for yourselves, and you're not moving fast enough, so you need to do something about it."

If he said "let's pick up our feet here" it would be like saying "we're a team, as a group we're not moving fast enough (including me)". Instead he's implying that he is moving quickly enough, and that the other people need to do better.

It's a way of talking down to somebody too, if you think you're better than them and that you don't need to show them respect, but you think they have to respect you. "You there, servant, fetch me a sandwich!"

Does that make sense?