be up to vs could

be up to

verb
  • To do or be involved in doing; to do (often something mischievous or inappropriate). 

  • To depend on, to be the choice of. 

could

verb
  • Used to politely ask for someone else to do something. 

  • Used to show the possibility that something might happen. 

  • Used to politely ask for permission to do something. 

  • Used to suggest something. 

  • simple past tense of can 

  • Used as a past subjunctive (contrary to fact). 

noun
  • Something that could happen, or could be the case, under different circumstances; a potentiality. 

How often have the words be up to and could occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )