The other day, Clapper, the former CIA chief, said, “He upped and did something.” In my speech it would be, “He up and did …..” So I looked for the expression in my Larousse Fr-Eng Eng-Fr dictionary since it seems second only to the OED in having every sort of expression listed and, sure enough, there it was, but under vi (intransitive verb) and labeled inf. (informal) with a couple of examples using “upped”.
That is a good example of the parts of speech problem I have even with all my language study: I was unable to accurately label “up” in the expression as a verb; I would have labeled it a particle or adverb.
That is not to say the Larousse people are always right, but they seem to be a superb set of lexicographers. But that does leave me with the question of why I felt it would be “he up and left” in my speech rather than “he upped and left.” I must have missed something somewhere.