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fw
Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 361
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 Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 3:38 pm Post subject: What is important is to keep (up/on). |
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A: I was really surprised at how slim you�ve got. How did you lose all that weight?
B: I just walked for 30 minutes after dinner every evening.
A: How simple! I thought there must be some secret.
B: What is important is to keep ( up/on). It is actually not as simple as you would think.
Does "on" make sense in the brackets above?fwkk8769 |
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dragn
Joined: 17 Feb 2009
Posts: 450
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| Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| B: What is important is to keep ( up/on). It is actually not as simple as you would think. |
As a speaker of American English, I wouldn't say it either way in a hundred years. Keep up means to try not to fall behind, as in a race, etc. That doesn't really work here. Keep on sounds British. It's hard for me to imagine any American saying that in this particular sentence, although I sense that it would sound normal coming from a British speaker.
In fact, this whole conversation smacks of British English. Americans would either say keep up with it or keep doing it or keep on doing it, although other variations are possible. So, I'm sad to say that I cannot really answer your question. I'm posting just to inform you of the above, and to call attention to this post to our British friends for their take on it.
Greg |
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redset
Joined: 18 Mar 2006
Posts: 582
Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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Yo! <- not British
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'keep on' without adding something after it, like a present participle ('keep on keeping on' doesn't help though). Keep on doing the exercise, keep on walking every day would work, and so would keep on the programme or anything else where you could use stay on....
Keep up would work, in the sense of 'keep up (with a programme/schedule)'. If you're trying to walk 30 minutes each day, if you miss a day then you've fallen behind! You need to keep up with the exercise and maintain the routine. Usually we'd say keep up with (whatever) but you could get away with implying it in informal speech. |
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