I'm trying to decide whether I should use "hold the hope" or "keep the hope" in a composition I'm preparing. It seems to me they are equivalent. Personally I like "hold the hope" better because sounds less common. Also, it seems to me "hold the hope" would be more suitable where that what I'm hoping for is less likely to happen and "keep the hope" would be either, more likely or equally probable of happening than not happening. Is this assumption correct?
Learn English – “Hold the hope” vs. “keep the hope”
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Related Solutions
Normally the term comparable to guys is gals.
And I think this is one case where Google NGrams can actually be useful. Here we see that guys and gals and gals and guys clearly outnumber girls and guys and guys and girls.
Note that girls by itself crushes gals in usage, but that only supports the contention, because girls is mainly used to describe female children.
In fact, if we NGram girls with boys (i.e., male children) we see that the usage is roughly comparable.
"You're not the boss of me" emphasizes "me," and is something a child would say (or we imagine would say) to his parents. It's also often said by an adult to give the statement that connotation, sometimes in an ironic way.
"You're not my boss" is a bit more on-the-nose and declarative, whereas "you're not the boss of me" is more absolute, confrontational, and draws more upon the cultural shared knowledge of that phrase.
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Best Answer
Using "the" before a noun refers to a specific object or concept, rather than a general abstract concept; for example, "the weather" is specific ("the weather today will be rainy"), while "weather" is not, ("Mild weather is to be expected at this time of year").
When you use "the xxx", in a sentence, then, you are referring to a specific "xxx", so the "xxx" should already have been introduced.
If the "xxx" (the hope, in this case) hasn't already been introduced, then you could do it in the phrase, for example "She was holding on to the hope that he would ask her to marry him".
Secondly, merely "holding" something intangible like hope is a metaphorical usage, and the statement doesn't really convey much unless you embellish or qualify it. "Keep hope alive" might be a better way of saying what you want to say, and is a well-used - and therefore well understood - expression.