2

The following text is an excerpt from "Wifey Redux" by Kevin Barry:

I sighed and left the den. The way it worked, Ellie had the use of the sitting room down back of the ground floor; no teenager wants to sit with her parents. She’d had a decorator in – it was got up in like a purple-and-black scheme – and she had a really fabulous Eames couch we’d got at auction for her sixteenth, and I went down there to check on Aodhan and herself.

How to understand the word "decorator" and "got up in"? According to the word "like", I presume there is some resemblance between the decorator and the scheme, but fail to see the connection.

1 Answer 1

3

These are all idiomatic expressions.

Decorator = a painter, or perhaps an "interior decorator", an advisor in aesthetics of home decoration.

Got up ... in = "the results [of the painting or of acting on the decorators advice] were as follows". The "in" here is the same as that of "The lady in red", perhaps an extension of the original sense of "clothed in".

like = "as, in my opinion" or just plain "as".

A partial paraphrase: "I'm like, whoah, it was all in black and purple!" Or more literally, Rand al'Thor's "it was decorated in, like, a purple and black design".

6
  • 1
    It's that second "in" which is confusing me. If it just said "it was got up like a purple-and-black scheme", the sentence would seem more natural to me. (Not the OP, but I'm a native English speaker who also found this wording odd after the OP highlighted it.)
    – Rand al'Thor
    Dec 15, 2019 at 14:38
  • 1
    @Randal'Thor 1: What a long OED entry "in" has, for such a short word! 2: There are regional variations in colloquial speech, and not all native English speakers sound uniformly natural to each other. Dec 15, 2019 at 15:03
  • 1
    Ahhh, now it makes sense. Just a couple of commas around the "like" would make ti seem more natural to me. My suggested partial paraphrase: "it was decorated in, like, a purple and black design".
    – Rand al'Thor
    Dec 15, 2019 at 15:12
  • I think a "decorator" is likely to do the painting to the design requested by the customer
    – mikado
    Dec 16, 2019 at 18:46
  • @mikado I think you are right. It's a dialect difference I was not aware of. Dec 16, 2019 at 18:53

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.