Heard on The Judges: "hold" = "borrow"

[Baker, John]

I was struck by this use in the 1999 Destiny's Child song "Bills, Bills, Bills":
 
And you have the audacity
To even come and step to me
Ask to hold some money from me
Until you get your check next week

 
As I may have mentioned before, the song is also notable, to me, for its repeated use of the word "triflin'," a word frequently used by my parents.
 
 
John Baker
 

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
Sent: Tue 5/6/2008 9:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Heard on The Judges: "hold" = "borrow"



Twenty-ish, black, female plaintiff from somewhere near the town of
Concord, NY, who spoke a passing-strange dialect: r-ful, with
Noo-Yawk-City-like vowels, but, otherwise, Deep-Southern, such as
using "Mr. [First Name]" and "Miss [First Name]" as a sign of respect,
even to and of the couple that she was suing:

"So Mr. Albert said that he was gon' call Miss Betty and aks her could
I _hold_ her car."

I didn't find this use in HDAS [admittedly, my glaucoma, presbyopia,
and myopia handicap me when it comes to searching fine print and I may
have overlooked it], but DARE has it "in var applications of std sense
'be in possession of' ...":

a  "To examine, to look at ..."

...

c  "To borrow ..."

Clearly, the speaker is using "hold" in sense c, of which DARE has an
example from Virginia. However, this sense is "standard" in Saint
Louis BE.

DARE has an example of sense a from North Carolina, calling it "Rare."
But, again, this sense is also "standard" in Saint Louis BE.

(And, as usual, I'm talking about Saint Louis BE as I know it from a
half-century or so ago.)

-Wilson
---
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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