“Chin up!”

Many decades ago, while I still lived in France, I once happened to feel very sad and depressed about an outcome that was eluding me and was told “chin up!”, perhaps as a way to cope with my state of mind and help me draw the capacity to move on.

At the time, my English was quite limited and I failed to fully understand the meaning of the two words. I’ve since learned that “chin up” is something said to someone facing a difficult situation, to encourage them to be brave, not to be sad and “face the music” as it were.

Of course, “chin up” is ambiguous in and of itself and was handwritten on a note from a non-native English speaker, so all parties involved might have missed a lot – or not - out of an entanglement of ambiguities...