Pick it up

If you need to “pick it up”, you need to go faster or hurry, because you are doing something too slowly. In this comic strip, there is a literal and figurative meaning: Pick up the game/ pick up the golf ball.

**Another (similar) meaning of “pick up” is when something “gets busier”.

1. Often I tell myself to pick it up, otherwise my English students may arrive while I’m still in the shower.

2. In a long-distance cycling race or in a marathon, people who are lagging behind will find it almost impossible to catch up to (reach) the frontrunners if they don’t pick up the pace early enough.

3.  We need to pick things up when we have a deadline and are racing against the clock. It’s not easy to get your kids to pick it up when you’re running late!

4. Have you ever asked a taxi driver or someone driving a car to pick it up because you had a job interview to get to? It’s nerve-wracking when it depends on someone else whether you arrive on time or not.

5. FIFA's secretary general, Jerome Valcke, scolded Brazil again for being behind schedule in stadium preparations for the 2014 World Cup. He said, “there is not a single stadium ready today." He is pushing Brazilian lawmakers to pick up the pace.



6. Here is a small sample of what a spinning instructor might say in a spinning workout at the gym: “Now are you ready! All the way up off the seat, Level 3 - 15 sec, Level 4 - 15 sec, Level 5 - 15 sec, level 6 - 15 sec. Good job. Now Level 4, sit down on the seat. Pick up the pace! Let’s go, good job. Level 4 - 30 sec. push it!!”

**7. After the Carnival, private English classes will pick up a whole lot more for me, because as they say here in Brazil, the year only begins after Carnival. Tourism picks up a lot here during Carnival.