The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US

How curious! (I feel that I've observed the Britishization of the word "curious" in my lifetime. As a child, it meant only interested, intrigued. Now it also means strange or bizarre.)

The article starts off with "run-up." What's the origin of that? I have heard of run-up in cricket.

Huh. Curiouser and curiouser.

According to the O.E.D. it's been used in the US in a stock market context since 1935.

As an example of how seriously the British take their language, here's a shortened entry for the phrase "run-up".

    1.The act of running up to a certain point; esp. 

    1.a Coursing. The race between two greyhounds up to the first turn or wrench of the hare. 

        1834 Thacker Courser's Comp. I. 134 One dog is sometimes behind the other in the first run up to the hare

    1.b The act of taking or sending a ball up to the goal or into a position for final play. Also attrib. Chiefly in Golf. 

        1897 Outing XXX. 484/1 Foster‥, after a clean run from 'way down the field, puts the ball through the uprights.‥ The excitement of the run-up has been intense.

    1.c A run made in preparation for jumping, throwing, etc., in Athletics; in Cricket, the bowler's approach to the bowling crease before delivery. 

        1897 Encycl. Sport I. 52/2 Pace in the run-up supplies the impetus; spring enables the jumper to lift himself into the air.

    1.d = run-in | RAF lingo.

        1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 27 June 8 Another Stirling and a Wellington adopted almost identically the same run-up as ourselves.    

    1.e A period of time or series of occurrences leading up to some important (freq. political) event; an action which prepares the way for one on a larger scale. 

        1966 Sunday Times 20 Nov. 48/2 The Petit Palais show offers, also, invaluable evidence in its drawing section of the ways in which Picasso manoeuvred during the crucial run-up to the ‘Demoiselles d'Avignon’.
        1968 Listener 5 Dec. 761/1 The run-up to the election of Oxford's new Poetry Professor has aroused a good deal of mirthful interest

    
    2 Bookbinding. (See quot. 1875.) Also attrib. 

        1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 2004/2 Run-up, a fillet-mark which runs from head to tail on the back, without mitering with the horizontal cross fillets on the panels.
        1880 J. W. Zaehnsdorf Bookbinding 131 With a ‘run-up’ back, the edge of the leather round the end papers is to‥have a roll run round it in gold.


    3 On the U.S. Stock Market, a rapid increase in the price or value of a commodity. Now also in gen. use. 

        1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Apr. 17/8 Corn advanced to 1 to 13/4 cents a bushel, but cotton was reactionary after Thursday's run-up.
        1942 Ibid. 1 Oct. 21 Laclede gas preferred had a runup of 6½ points.

As an American, I always find it kind of ironic that Aussie colloquialisms and colloquialisms my Texan grandparents used overlap, likely because of being drawn from a similar pool of British & Irish expats some 100-150 years ago. "I reckon" is one that comes to mind first.