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Pull your socks up!

Improve your work, it's not good enough!

TRANSLATION

Pull your socks up! = Reiß dich am Riemen! Reiß dich zusammen! Pull one's socks up! = sich anstrengen um etwas zu verbessern/schaffen Now we need to pull our socks up = Jetzt müssen wir uns am Riemen reißen.

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

"… simply telling people to behave more responsibly is no more likely to be effective than telling someone who is depressed to PULL HIS SOCKS UP."

theguardian.com

Did you
know?

Pull one's socks up
idiom [British, informal]

- to make an effort to improve your work or behaviour because it is not good enough

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus

- If you tell someone to pull their socks up, you mean that they should start working or studying harder, because they have been lazy or careless.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com

- To start making an effort; to renew or redouble one's efforts.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/

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ORIGIN

In the 1893 version of Jack & Beanstalk, the author H. F. McLelland uses the saying 'pull your socks up’ to mean 'don’t be afraid’. In the early 20th century the phrase was used in the same way that 'pull yourself together’ is used today.

A possible source of the saying could be that socks didn’t always have that elasticated band around the top. In days gone by, schoolboys in shorts could regularly be seen with socks drooping around their ankles and were told to smarten themselves by pulling their socks up.

adapted from: chattyfeet.com

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SYNONYMS

pull oneself together, get one's act together, shape up, belly up to the bar, knuckle down, roll up one's sleeves, turn over a new leaf, mend one's ways, clean up one's act, make amends

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USE OWAD IN A CONVERSATION TODAY

"He's going to have to pull his socks up if he wants to stay in the team."

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