Red up your bedroom. Tidy up your bedroom.
Yer kitchen’s in a right red up. Your kitchen is in a right mess.
Note from Editor: red up is a tricky one to define, as it can mean opposing things. As a verb I’ve always thought it meant to tidy up and as a noun it meant a mess. Please let me know below if you’d disagree with this.
Red up definitely means a mess!
I aye thocht red oot wis ti tidy up
IMO it is both because its said as ‘raid’ not red or ‘reed’ so i would say that because it is said like that it would be used as the same term as a raid, so a red (raid) up would be that it is a mess because it looks like a bombsite and a red (raid) oot could mean to tidy up ie chuck everything out, thats how i interpret it anyway.
My family comes from Centre Co and Blair Co. PA. Growing up in NJ we used “red up” to mean “clean up.” I read in the Phila Inquirer one time where a columnist explained the old PA Germans used it to mean red up the garden in the spring. My whole family is PA German so that is my excuse. Not Amish or Mennonite. The first time I used the expression when I went to college down south, was the last time I used it. Lots of laughter.