In the musician world, I have only heard "pick it up" to mean play faster, as is pick up the pace. Beats per minute. Bill On Mon, Mar 2, 2026 at 4:05 PM Steve Lagotte via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
“Dial” really shook me when I realized its frankly in hindsight obvious derivation.
The other day I heard that ska guys say “pick it up! pick it up!” because of the way they play guitars on the “up-pick” only. This is true.
I kinda always assumed it had something to do with dancing (or as it is known to the skafficionado, “skanking”) and I have been waiting for weeks for a social scenario to jam this Fun Fact into. This’ll do.
-Steve
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jeff S <jsalzman@gmail.com> To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Bcc: Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 08:19:15 -0500 Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Re: A bit of archaic terminology "Dial" the phone "Wind (or crank)" the window down