Up On You

Heard this morning the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent speaking on NPR. He was describing the efforts to help people still in Falluja. In describing these Iraqis he said they stayed because "they are down to earth people," which is just a great mangled use of the idiom. I get what he meant: these people wouldn't leave their homes, they are attached to their land, etc.

The misuse reminds me of the lovely way my Italian friends have always responded when I ask them a benign question, like where should we go this evening?

"It is up on you," they say.

Really, it is.