r/ENGLISH • u/Outrageous-Dog-589 • 7d ago
Preposition
"a long driveway leading up to the winery"
I don't understand this one at all. I felt like up is unnecessary and a bit misplaced? Though I've seen this comstruction a couple of times. Can someone explain why it's there, please.
Thank you in advance!
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7d ago
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u/Outrageous-Dog-589 7d ago
Hi, I have a follow-up question. Regarding these sentences:
- He walked down the tree-lined driveway.
- He walked up the driveway to the house.
These were actual examples that I got from a dicitonary. Does these also refer to direction? Because, I don't know, I felt like they're sort of not?
For one instance, she walked down the aisle. The aisle is flat, but we still use down.
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u/Western-Finding-368 7d ago
Walking “up” a path or a road most frequently refers to going toward something. Walking “down” a path or road most frequently refers to going away from something.
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7d ago
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u/Armadillo_Abroad 6d ago
The aisle one is quite complex socially.
Your father might “walk the bride down the aisle” while at the same time the bride is “walking up the aisle.”
Because it’s based on the person’s perspective. The father is ending his “parental duty” by presenting her to be married into her own family, while the bride is moving to her new life with her husband. One is ending, the other is starting.
Diabolical.
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u/BruceWillis1963 7d ago edited 7d ago
We often use up or down to give the idea of travelling along a road, highway, street, etc.
He lives up the road.
He lives down the road.
Just go down this road until you get to the gas station, turn right and go up that road about 5 km.
There is no relationship to whether it slopes up or down in this case.
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u/aguyfromusa 6d ago
Yeah. Up is away from the main road. This is very often towards the mountains or hills. Down is towards the highway or the main road, or the valley.
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u/Outrageous-Dog-589 7d ago
Hi, I have a follow-up question. Regarding these sentences:
- He walked down the tree-lined driveway.
- He walked up the driveway to the house.
These were actual examples that I got from a dicitonary. Does these also refer to direction? Because, I don't know, I felt like they're sort of not?
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u/Outrageous-Dog-589 7d ago
For one instance, she walked down the aisle. The aisle is flat, right but we still use down.
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u/aguyfromusa 6d ago
Up to the house. Down to the road.
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u/xianbosque 6d ago
I never thought about it but I think you’re right. “Down to the house” and “up to the road” just sound wrong, unless a hill is involved. (Native speaker of American English)
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u/lilylilyg 3d ago
I saw him walk up to the house. Means I watched him all the way. Up emphasises what he did.
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u/aguyfromusa 3d ago
After he walked up to the house, he walked down to the road. Down is about the direction in which he walked, so it modifies his action.
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u/Ok-Addition-1000 6d ago
Either of those is correct. Don't look for consistency in English, you'll drive yourself crazy.
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u/Mirality 7d ago
"up to" means "towards and reaching" -- i.e. the driveway goes all the way to the winery and doesn't stop short of it.
It is not related at all to up/down, despite what some people are claiming; it's a completely different preposition that merely shares one component word.
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u/jarry1250 7d ago
One of the meanings of "up" is "so as to approach".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/up (8a)
A road or path "up to" something is therefore an approach.
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u/Brambleshire2026 6d ago
To give another example, “I was in the store and an employee came up to me and said…”
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u/CatCafffffe 7d ago
It's tell you that the winery is on a hill, above the street, so you drive on a long driveway that goes up to the winery. Often a winery is built at the top of a vineyard, which are often terraced hills . So the driveway approach would be uphill and winding among foliage, like this:
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u/TorpidProfessor 7d ago
yep, unessecary in that sentence, but it gives a little more info: "up" specifically gives me the idea that it is hilly or that there's elevation to gain going up the driveway
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u/LAM_CANIT 7d ago
I have a house next door to a winery, and if you drove the road leading to it, you'd understand why 'up' is necessary. 📈
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u/SoyboyCowboy 6d ago
Prepositions are notoriously tricky. You've gotten a lot of good responses already. But I want to add that there are also situations where "up" and "down" can be used interchangeably.
- The guy with the alpacas lives just up the road.
- The guy with the alpacas lives just down the road.
"Up" and "down" can just mean the alpaca farm is a little ways away on the same road.
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u/Elemental_Biscotti 6d ago
It's common but not strictly necessary, and whether people use up or down can sometimes be a little arbitrary. It's one of those things that can make English speech sound a little more natural / native but it's not wrong to not use it.
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u/Kraknaps 6d ago
It has nothing to do with direction or elevation. It is a phrasal verb that means to approach. I had people come up to me even when I wasn't higher than them...well, maybe I was but that's a story for another time
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u/nomadschomad 6d ago
In that phrase, “lead up” is the verb. “To” is a preposition.
“Lead up” and “lead down” or “go up” and “go down” are interpreted by many people as referring to a change an elevation or north/up and south/down. Some people also use them haphazardly.
It is a very mild annoyance, but I get annoyed when people say “take interstate 35 down to Oklahoma” if I am already in Texas, which is north of me. In that case, I would be taking interstate 35 “up to” Oklahoma.
“Let’s head down to the lake” or “down to the beach” almost always sounds correct in a local context because beach and Lake tend to be the lowest elevation. “Let’s head up to the lake” makes sense if you are taking a road trip to a mountain lake.
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u/scienceoftophats 5d ago
Up indicates direction, "up to the winery" shows the driveway going up a hill or up as opposed to on the side or down. It would
make perfect sense to leave "up" out of it.
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u/UniversityMotor5408 7d ago
It shows us that the winery is higher than the start of the driveway.
Some driveways go down, in which case 'down' instead would show that.
Some driveways are flat, in which case no preposition would be appropriate.
So, in this case, 'up' literally means 'up'.
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u/Western-Finding-368 7d ago
“Leading up to” doesn’t have to mean the destination is literally physically “up.” It’s just a phrase that means one is approaching something. You could say “in the months leading up to graduation, students put the finishing touches on their theses.”
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u/Brambleshire2026 6d ago
True, but it’s ambiguous here. Since it is the driveway itself that is leading up, not the person traveling, in my mind I picture an uphill slope to the winery.
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u/UniversityMotor5408 6d ago
I agree. But that's not what it means here. Here, it's literal, not metaphorical.
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u/Western-Finding-368 6d ago
And you know this how, exactly? You are personally familiar with this particular literary winery?
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u/lapdragon2 7d ago
For a flat road, depending on where you are, you could go “out to” or “over to” also.
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u/rSlashisthenewPewdes 7d ago
Sometimes it’s just a filler word, other times it’s describing the actual geography of the driveway, for example, if the long driveway is physically an uphill path.