Learn the English Phrases TO HOLD DOWN THE FORT and TO HOLD OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you

learn the English phrase "to hold down the fort."

Now a fort is like an old building,

like in history when you study

when they first settled in Canada, they built forts,

these big places where they could stay safely.

But nowadays, when we say "to hold down the fort,"

we mean the person who stays behind

when someone else goes somewhere

or when other people go somewhere.

Here's a good example, later this semester,

there may be some class trips at our school.

Some students might go on class trips,

but I probably won't go.

I'll probably stay behind and hold down the fort.

Sometimes when Jen goes to market,

she doesn't need help at market.

So I'll stay home and hold the fort.

So when you say that you are holding down the fort,

it simply means you are one of the people

or the person who stays home or stays at work

when other people go somewhere.

I usually like to be the person who holds down the fort,

especially at work.

When a lot of people leave

and I'm one of the only people in the building,

it's very quiet and very peaceful.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase to hold off.

And in particular, the meaning of hold off

that means to delay or wait.

Sometimes I have a really good idea

and I want to do extra things for my YouTube channel

but I hold off because I think I don't want to get too busy.

So I just hold off for a bit.

That means I wait, that means I delay.

Sometimes there's things I want to do outside on the farm.

But sometimes when it's the middle of winter

I tend to hold off for a little bit.

I wait a little while

until the weather gets a little bit nicer.

So to review, to hold down the fort means

to be one of the people who stays at home

or stays at work or stays wherever

while other people go somewhere.

You just stay back and hold down the fort.

And to hold off, one of the meanings

of to hold off is to simply wait

or to delay before you do something.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from, wow,

I really folded this one up today, just a minute here.

This is from Olrait.

"So we could say that during first wave of COVID,

we all stayed put, each in his or her home."

And I said, that is correct.

At the beginning of the pandemic,

the governments of the world wanted everyone to stay put.

Great example.

So yes, that was from the phrase the other day, to stay put.

Kind of similar to hold down the fort,

isn't it, when you stay put.

It also could be that you're hold,

it's not exactly the same meaning,

but it also could mean

similar to holding down the fort.

Anyways, it is starting to get a little nicer here.

The sun is shining.

It's a balmy seven degrees today.

I know for you, that might be quite cold.

We've been getting a lot of rain and snow and rain and snow.

at this point in time in Canada,

it's usually quite cold at night

and quite warm during the day.

And so it causes strange things to happen.

Like if you look out at the river,

you'll notice that the river,

it's flooded and kind of frozen

and then it melted and then it froze again.

And right now it's kind of half melted.

So we're kind of stuck in this little

in between time where, yeah,

during the day, quite nice.

I think I'm pushing the wrong button here.

During the day, quite nice.

Even wearing a winter jacket, I feel quite warm,

but at night, extremely cold.

So we'll have to go through this for a few more weeks

and then spring should arrive, that should be really nice.

Anyways, I hope you understood the two phrases today.

Let me check my time here.

Oh, I can talk for 10 more seconds.

What should I talk about?

I'm having a good day today.

I'm behind in all the work I need to do,

but I'm still having a good day.

Anyways, see you in a couple days

with another short English lesson, bye.