Hold firm
Today’s expression is to “hold firm.” When you hold firm on a decision, you refuse to change your mind about something, even when you might have a good reason to. Earlier in today’s lesson, you heard that the organizers of Tokyo’s Olympic Games are holding firm on their decision to hold the Olympics this year . They have made the decision to go ahead with the Olympics. A majority—in fact, a substantial majority—of people in Japan think the Olympics should be cancelled or postponed again. Japan’s public health agency is advising against the events. But the committee is holding firm. Even though there’s pressure to reverse the decision, and even though a lot of people disagree with the decision, the committee is not changing their decision. They are holding firm.
Holding firm can make compromise difficult. If two sides enter a negotiation and if both sides hold firm on their demands, then there isn’t much room for compromise. I just saw a public opinion poll saying that large majorities of people in the US want the two political parties to compromise and work together. Sounds great, and I’m glad the poll results show that.
But I think people’s opinions change when there’s a specific issue on the table. When there’s a specific issue being debated, many people want their representatives to hold firm and not compromise with the other side. People like the idea of compromise when speaking in general terms. But on specific proposals, they like their side to hold firm and not give in to the other side.
This is for the parents out there: have you ever said “no” to your kids, only to have them cry and scream in public? I’m not a parent, so I’ve never faced this dilemma. It’s easy for me to say the parents need to hold firm and not change their decisions just because kids are crying and making a scene. But I don’t think I would ever know for sure what I would do if I’m not in that position.
You remember from last week that the European football clubs that wanted to start a Super League did not hold firm. That was pretty much the opposite of holding firm: they backed down. They changed their decision pretty quickly after public opinion went against them.
I’ve mentioned on a few previous lessons that big movie studios have postponed the theatrical releases of their big movies. Nobody wanted to release a big movie into a pandemic. But studios re-worked their schedules and they are now holding firm on the planned release dates. They are keeping their word and releasing movies on time. Warner Brothers released “Godzilla vs. Kong”, for example, and its animated film “Tom & Jerry” on time. They might have postponed the movie release dates again, but they held firm. They didn’t change the dates—and “Godzilla vs. Kong” was the highest-grossing non-Chinese movie of the year.
JR’s song of the week
Today’s song of the week is “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by the band Iron & Wine. The song was featured in the movie Twilight from 2008. I read the lyrics—twice—and I have no idea what they mean. So this is a song to listen to, enjoy the melody, try to pick out words you like…but my advice is, don’t spend too much time figuring it out or trying to understand a deeper meaning! “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” is JR’s song of the week.
See you next time!
And that’s all for today’s lesson. I hope you enjoyed this update lesson. Careful of that satellite that’s heading for earth. If you have a convertible car, maybe leave the top closed until we know where that thing lands.
So how many of the eight lessons do you remember listening to the first time around? We had the VW bus, Nomadland, space junk, George Floyd, WeWork, the Japan Olympics, Alex Trebek, ghost kitchens, and password managers. We cover a lot of ground, and some of those lessons go back years.
If you ever find yourself with a few extra minutes, then check out a Plain English lesson from the archives. Any member of Plain English—on a free plan or a paid plan—has access to the Lesson Library. You just sign in and find “Libraries” at the top of the page and choose “lessons.” From there, you can filter and search all our old lessons—going back to Lesson number 1, if you want. It’s easy to brose by topic and find something good to listen to. Arts, politics, sports, travel, science, the environment, health—whatever your interests, I bet we have some old lessons on it.
If you’re not a member yet, go ahead and do that at PlainEnglish.com…you’ll find a lot of great old lessons there. They get better with age!
That’s all for today. We’ll be back again with a new lesson, new topic on Monday. See you then!
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
