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#1
The phrase «hotting up» is frequently used by BrE speakers, both in informal and formal contexts, with the same meaning as «heating up.» Here’s and example from the BBC. However, «heating up» also appears to be common in BrE (example).
What are the usage rules for «hotting up» in BrE? Is «hotting/to hot» (rather than «heating/to heat») used only in this idiom or does it have other uses? I know that BrE speakers wouldn’t refer to a «hotting system,» for instance.
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#2
«Hotting up» is intransitive and tends to be used figuratively: «The football league championship is hotting up, with three matchdays remaining and only two points separating the top six teams». It is not interchangeable with «heating up» (which is used transitively in your link).
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#3
«Hotting up» is intransitive and tends to be used figuratively: «The football league championship is hotting up, with three matchdays remaining and only two points separating the top six teams». It is not interchangeable with «heating up» (which is used transitively in your link).
Thanks; that makes sense.
However, the following line also appears in the first article, the onle titled «Ireland hotting up»:
«The Irish climate is heating up almost twice as fast as the rest of the world, a report has suggested.»
In this case, «heating up» is used intransitively. Why doesn’t it say «hotting up» instead?
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#4
Google gives 10:1 heating up:hotting up (Note that’s English hits without knowing which version).
You state «hotting up» is frequently used by BrE speakers, both in informal and formal contexts, with the same meaning as «heating up.»
Yup it’s used. It is interesting to note that on the same page of your reference «Temperatures are heating up faster than the earth’s average» is also used & that heating up is used 2 times & hotting up only once….
Perhaps the page writers they have been taught to try not to use exactly the same words over and over again. (Essay writing….)
Language changes… go with the flow use heating?
GF..
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#5
Thanks; that makes sense.
However, the following line also appears in the first article, the onle titled «Ireland hotting up»:
«The Irish climate is heating up almost twice as fast as the rest of the world, a report has suggested.»
In this case, «heating up» is used intransitively. Why doesn’t it say «hotting up» instead?
Possibly because the meaning is literal, not figurative.
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#6
I think I’d probably only use hotting up in a figurative sense, like SS’s football thing, or a political crisis, or a new relationship, for examples. I would classify hot up as ‘pretty informal’ though.
Heat up can be used in the same way, but I’d only use heat up if I was talking about actual physical heat. I can’t imagine me saying Ireland hotting up when talking about Ireland getting physically hotter.
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#7
Thanks; that makes sense.
However, the following line also appears in the first article, the onle titled «Ireland hotting up»:
«The Irish climate is heating up almost twice as fast as the rest of the world, a report has suggested.»
In this case, «heating up» is used intransitively. Why doesn’t it say «hotting up» instead?
I agree with sound shift and ewie that «hotting up» tends to be used figuratively. I think your first article used «hotting up» in the headline as an attention-grabber: to get people intrigued and asking themselves «in what sense is Ireland hotting up?» The body of the article then uses the normal, literal — and more prosaic — «heat up».
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#8
Thank you so much for your input, everyone!
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#9
I must be so out of touch, or rather never in touch, never heard this.
present participle of hot (up), chiefly Southern, southern Midland, & British
as in heating
to cause to have or give off heat to a moderate degree
with a silky Southern drawl, the waitress asked, «Want me to hot up that pie?»
Cite this Entry
“Hotting (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hotting%20%28up%29. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
The above definition was not meant to be sexual, it was meant purely as an act of violence in which a heated up steel rod is inserted into the asshole, thereby «welding» off the evacuation door from the intestine, and in conclusion… preventing the extrication of needless minerals from the body which eventually will prevent further digestion of food, KILLING the victim.
Get the Putting something hot up in that ass mug.
Hot topic kids who worship the chain store, and buy all theri clothing there. They look like classic ‘hot topic kids’, and are usually rude, fake, and/or idiots. They only wear the latest hot topic inventory, including make-up, clothes, and hair. May also think they are goth or punk. See ‘chain store puke’.
‘That emo kid is hot topic throw up.’
Get the hot topic throw up mug.
They are both idiomatic in Britain. Hotting up can be and is sometimes applied to the weather too.
On a cloudless July morning where high temperatures are expected, someone might say «It’s hotting up out there». Indeed, in that context it would be more usual than saying «It’s heating up out there».
The OED recognises the use of «hot» as a verb, from the 13th century and before.
- trans. To heat. Also fig. Now chiefly in to hot up 1a at Phrasal verbs.
a1225 (▸?a1200) MS Trin. Cambr. in R. Morris Old Eng. Homilies
(1873) 2nd Ser. 109 (MED), Þe sunne..þincheð ful of hete, for þat
hat alle þing þe on eorðe wecseð.c1475 (▸1392) Surg. Treat. in MS Wellcome 564 f. 71 (MED), So
þat it be wel hate at þe fier.1561 J. Hollybush tr. H. Brunschwig Most Excellent Homish
Apothecarye f. 7, Take two tyles that be hoted.1610 J. Healey tr. J. L. Vives in tr. St. Augustine Citie of God
xviii. xiii. 680 Pelethronian Lapiths gaue the bit, And hotted
rings.1622 G. Markham & W. Sampson Herod & Antipater iv. i, His
sicknesse Madam rageth like a Plague, Once hotted neuer cured.1847–78 J. O. Halliwell Dict. Archaic & Provinc. Words Hot, to
heat, or make hot. Notts.1881 Society 2 Feb. Water hotted and a steaming bowl of punch
prepared.1952 S. Selvon Brighter Sun ix. 188 Urmilla went to hot the food.
1978 ‘J. Gash’ Gold from Gemini 34, I peeled two spuds and hotted
the oil.
hot up
1. To increase in heat; to heat up (something). Primarily heard in UK. I’m just waiting for this stew to hot up, and then we’ll be ready to eat! I’m sorry about that, sir, would you like me to hot up that steak for you?
2. To make or become more intense, interesting, or exciting. Primarily heard in UK. The election campaigns for the local MP are really hotting up. I feel like my relationship with Darren is really beginning to hot up.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
- catch heat
- burn someone up
- burn up
- burned up
- stew
- heat up
- fry up
- (I’ve been) keeping cool
- Ive
- feel the heat