Hold a grudge
To hold a grudge means you stay angry at someone because they did something bad in the past, and you took it personally. Charles Manson held a grudge against a music producer in Los Angeles. Without getting into the details on this particular grudge, it just means that Manson was angry at a music producer because the producer declined to sign him to a music contract. Manson held this grudge for a long time, meaning he stayed angry at the producer for not giving him a contract. Do you hold a grudge against anyone? I hope not; it’s not healthy. But here are some examples when you might hold a grudge. What would happen if your coworker stole money from your employer, but you got fired for it? If that happened to me, I think I would hold a grudge against the coworker and also against my boss for firing me without justification. I think I would continue to hold the grudge—I would continue to be angry—until someone made it right and hired me back. What would happen if your best friend asked your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend out on a date? Would you hold a grudge for that? I think most people would. You can probably see the pattern here. You don’t hold a grudge for a misunderstanding or an accident; you hold a grudge when you think someone does something to you personally. For example, if another driver hit your car, you wouldn’t hold a grudge; you’d just be mad. But if that driver hit your car and then tried to blame you when the police came, then you might hold a grudge.
Come about
Our second phrase this week is “come about.” It’s one of those small, innocent-sounding phrasal verbs that are nonetheless hard to use. In the original context, I asked, Who is this Charles Manson and how did all of this come about? This means, where did this whole situation come from? How did this come about? You use this phrase when you want to say, how did this situation develop? How did it happen? Where did this situation come from? How did this come about? Pretend you find yourself in a confusing or disappointing situation. Maybe you find yourself with credit card bills you can’t afford to pay. You would ask yourself—or your family—how did this come about? Why are we in this situation? Maybe this situation came about because we spent too much money on our most recent vacation. It doesn’t always have to be negative situation. The idea for this podcast came about because I was learning Spanish and I appreciated a podcast that went at a slower speed. This podcast came about because I did some research and thought that there would be an audience for an English-language podcast at a slower speed. The program came about, or developed, for these reasons.
How did you come about to learn English? Tell me on Twitter or Facebook; you can find the show under the user name, PlanEnglishPod on both of those platforms. And that brings us to the end of the program for this week. Remember that the full episode transcripts are available online. If you’d like to test out your new vocabulary, suggest a topic for next week, or give me some feedback on the show, please do so on Facebook and Twitter; remember, PlainEnglishPod is the user name. You can also email me at jeff-at-plainenglish.com. Until next time, have a great week and try not to allow any grudges to come abou
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
