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English Expression: (Sent) up the river
Believe you me, you do not want to be sent up the river.
Why?
Because if you are, it means you are going to prison to become a jailbird.
Being sent up the river means being sent to prison.
This term was initially used when judges sent convicted criminals in New York to Sing-Sing Prison.
Sing-Sing is North of New York, up the Hudson River.
Therefore, if you were sentenced to spend time at Sing-Sing prison, you had to go up the river.
Over time, the expression became standard American English and was used to refer to anyone going to any prison anywhere in the United States.
Yes, even if the prison is in the middle of the desert, you can still say it was sent up the river.
I know that many Japanese English language students study English so they can understand movies.
If you are a fan of old movies from the fifties and sixties, you’ll hear this expression used.
Be mindful that the expression is a little bit dated these days, but you may still hear it mentioned in contemporary movies or by more mature people.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 70.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.
