Sopping it Up

Only one day after sending me his last card, and while he was probably still working on packing for his move, he put together a wordcard called "Sop." On the back of the card, Ruud explains that both "'SOP' and 'Op' are Dutch words. The two combined make a beautiful short poem." Strangely, "sop" made me think of nothing more than "sopping up" gravy with a piece of bread, but I decided to look up the meaning of these Dutch terms, and I discovered that

sop means lather, sauce, gravy

and that

op means upon, worn, up, upwards, exhausted, on

So I am now supposing that "sop" in English and Dutch share the same root, and that we've turned gravy into what we do to it. And "op," well, that sounds like "up" to me. But I wonder if Ruud had any other reading in mind!


Ruud Janssen, "Sop" (12 Aug 2005)
un violon d'ingres