"Get knocked down three times, get up four" okay but what are you getting up from that last time? If you get knocked down once, and then get up once, you are up. So if you get knocked down n times and get up n times, you are up. Getting knocked down n times and getting up n+1 times is confounding.
@wlonk maybe this assumes getting knocked down immediately after getting up, so the first one is implied?
@brennen But both "getting knocked down" and "getting back up" are state _transitions_, so you have to be in a state (down, or up) to do each.
(To be clear, this is a bit. I understand the phrase just fine.)
@RustyStriker @brennen Pick one:
A. This violates the Gricean maxim of Manner, specifically the call to be orderly. Therefore, we may presume that something specific is being communicated by describing a world where you go A, B as "B, A". But what?
B. "Back" in "get back up" means that it is a return to a previous state, therefore implying that "up" is the starting state.
(I am enjoying this bit too much, sorry.)
@RustyStriker @brennen True! I do think it's more euphonious without the "back", but both phrases do exist, and even if we have accounted for one, that still leaves us the other unresolved.