Idioms in English - 'Hold'

Yeah, I'll be there in a second.

Hold on.

Sorry.

Hi.

James from www.engvid.com.

I was just a little busy, but this guy won't hold on, you know?

So crazy.

He won't hold his horses.

It's driving me crazy.

Today we're going to work on hold and idioms.

How hold works in idioms.

Let's go to the board, okay?

All right.

Hold in English means to keep or maintain a position.

For instance, I'm holding the paper.

It's not falling, nor is it flying.

I'm holding it.

Now because of that meaning, we actually use it in many idioms, and if you listen to the

idiom carefully, you'll notice it means to keep it in the same place or to maintain that

position.

Okay?

So let's go to the board and take a look at a couple of idioms.

Now you heard me earlier say hold on.

Hold on means to wait.

So if you look at keep and maintain, and we say hold on, it means wait.

Wait for a second, wait for a moment.

Wait.

Now if you were listening carefully, you probably heard me say a couple of other idioms.

So why don't we put those on the board?

Now keep in mind, hold means keep or maintain in a position.

You'll see the blue screen.

That'll come down.

Write down a quick note, okay?

Great.

So I know you know what hold means, but let's look at some idioms.

So first one we said was hold on, and that equals wait.

Wait a second.

Wait a minute.

Just wait for a bit.

Next one I said, remember my camera guy was driving me crazy?

I said hold your horses.

Now he's not really riding a horse, but it's an old expression and it means like if you

hold your horses, have some patience, similar to hold on, okay?

So hold your horses, have patience, okay?

Next one, sometimes you just want someone to shut up, but you really can't say that.

Maybe you're in a conference or you're in a meeting or you're talking to someone.

So what you can say is, why don't you hold your peace for a second?

Hold your peace means remain silent.

Yes, you can actually tell someone to shut up in a good way.

If you say to someone, "Hey, wait a second, hold on, hold your peace, shut up."

They'll actually go, "Okay, really, it's funny."

So hold your peace.

Now don't get confused because sometimes when we say hold your peace, we mean gun.

Don't hold your peace.

Hold your peace.

Hold your peace is spelled like peace, P-E-A-C-E, peace versus war.

Peace meaning not fighting.

So if you hold your peace, hold your mouth, shut up, then there will be no war, like that.

Another one similar to that that we use is, hold your tongue, like that.

It's another way of saying shut up, but this isn't as polite.

You will get in trouble for saying hold your tongue, because it means shut up, and people

know you mean shut up.

Now do you remember I was telling that little joke about hold your peace, your gun?

Well in Canada we have, I say Canada all the time, that's where I'm from, but in the United

States, Canada, and England, there is something called a hold up.

Now the hold up means to make you wait, okay?

So if there's a hold up, it means to make you wait, okay, hold up, wait.

So let's say you're on a train in Canada, the TTC, yes, the TTC, notorious, always with

hold ups.

The train stops, or the bus stops, you can go hey, what's the hold up?

Why are we waiting, okay?

Something is making you wait.

So you're waiting, or something is making you wait.

Now do you remember the joke about holding your peace?

Well this whole thing about making you wait comes from the old days, people who wanted

money from a bank, but didn't have any money in the bank, would go to the bank, and say

to the bank, give me all of your money, and they would tell the people, hold up your hands.

They would hold up their hands, and then they would wait, as the people took all of the

money.

That's where it came from.

So if you say to somebody, yesterday I was at the store, and there was a hold up, they

won't think you were just waiting, they would go, did you call the police?

Because sometimes hold up means robbery, and that was the joke with the peace, because

that's another word for gun, peace.

So hold up, there's two meanings, one is to wait, two means robbery, there's a robbery

going on, and you have to hold up your hands.

Now, here's a couple of holds, remember?

What does hold mean?

Check, blue screen's coming down, make sure you get it right, did you get it right?

To maintain or keep in a position, that's right.

So all of these, if you're following now, hold up, you maintain your position, maintain

your peace, you keep your mouth shut, keep it, hold it in the position, all of them.

So we're looking at this one word and how we can use it in many different ways to give

a different mood, okay?

Now, here's something we want to do, you're in a competition, you think you are as good

as everybody else, or you're equal to everybody else, you will say, I can hold my own, I can

do my end of the job just as well as anybody else, okay?

So when we think we're as good as anyone else, or we can, you know, keep up with them, we

say, I can hold my own, cool, huh, that means you're as good as the rest of the competition.

What about if you make a decision and people say, do you know, it's not good, maybe you

should do this, maybe you should do that, you can turn around and say, I'm gonna hold

my ground.

That means, ground, you know what ground is, holding means I'm staying here, I'm not, I'm

not gonna change my position, I'm staying right here, I'm not changing my mind no matter

what you say, I'm holding my ground.

This isn't the same as hold my own, in holding my own I'm saying I'm as good as everybody

else, holding my ground means this ground is mine, I'm staying, you cannot make me change

my mind.

So hold my own to be as good as anyone else, and what did I say the other one was, hold

my ground.

It doesn't have to be my ground, it could be your ground, his ground, everybody's ground,

but to hold their ground, his ground, her ground, means to not change your mind.

Keep your position.

Now, we've gone through hold my ground, hold my own, hold my tongue, hold on, hold up,

hold your horses.

Now these are five, six different meanings for hold, we know what hold means now, and

if we look at the meaning of hold and we put them into each one of these idioms, we'll

find out quite quickly they're all kind of similar in a way.

Now look, I want you to come back, so hold on a second, I need to put a message on the

board, right?

Yeah, like that, see, it slipped in there, okay?

I have this and many more other idioms we can teach you, and I'm looking forward to

having you come to the website where we have a forum where you can learn about these idioms

and how idioms are basically put together, and a lot of other things like grammar, listening

clauses, whatnot.

We have a forum, you can come interact with myself and other teachers that are there.

You're probably saying, hold on, you didn't tell me where it is, well, hold your horses,

I'm getting to it right now, okay, geez man, hold your peace, let me finish, I can't think.

Okay, so www, what's this for, it's our website, www.engvid.com, where you can see myself and

other teachers who'd love to help you, okay?

Look, I gotta go, I'll be happy to see you there, go to the forum, put something in,

and I'll be with you shortly.

Take care, bye.