by Alan Townend23. Phrasal verb hold or «Hold on»
This is another story with lots of Phrasal Verb examples. As you
probably know phrasal verbs are made up of two parts — the verb +
a preposition.
I'm sure you have noticed that one phrasal verb can have hundreds
of different meanings. In this story we focus on the verb hold.
Before we start I'd like you to look at this example:
«Please hold on a minute I'll be right back!»
Can you guess the meaning of this sentence? You're right. It means
«Please wait a minute, don't go away until I'm back.»
Would you like more examples? Read this story and try to guess the
meaning of the 24 expressions with the verb hold in italics.
«Hold on»
Some people can't stand open spaces. That's called «agoraphobia».
Some people can't stand closed spaces. That's called
«claustrophobia». I suffer from the latter. Whenever I travel in a lift,
I have to hold myself together just in case I get the urge to shout
and scream. I must admit I do hold off doing things like that
whenever other people are present. The other day I was put to the
test and had to hold on to every bit of self control I had.
I was late for an appointment on the fifth floor of the building
because my train had been held up through some technical hitch or
other. Despite my endeavour to lose weight and use stairs wherever
possible I had no alternative but to use the lift on this occasion. I ran
to catch it just as the doors were closing until someone kindly held
them back for me. We went first to the second floor and three people
got out leaving a total of six, well within the specified maximum load.
Then the wretched thing stopped between the third and fourth floor.
The different reactions were interesting.
First there was silence for a minute, everyone holding to the old-
fashioned belief in Britain that you don't talk to strangers. The first
person to hold forth was an old man with a long grey beard. He
didn't know how people nowadays could be so inefficient. «How», he
asked his captive audience, «did these people hold down their jobs?»
When he was a young man, he continued when no-one answered his
question, «you held on to a job only if you did it properly.» Most
people held off making any comments because they were too
preoccupied with the irritation of being delayed.
I decided to hold out a helping hand mainly to control my nerves by
suggesting that we pushed the emergency button, wondering just
how long I could in reality hold out without breaking out in a sweat
or screaming. The young woman standing next to the control panel
dutifully pressed the red button. We waited. The silence was broken
by the old man announcing to the group that he «personally didn't