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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 141. The verb phrase today is to

  • clam up. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone clams up he or she

  • suddenly stops talking and refuses to speak anymore.

  • Okay. Let's look at the note here. This phrase alludes to ... again you know, it suggests, it

  • comes from... to the way a clam will close its shell tightly and keep it sealed,

  • especially for protection. Yeah. . So if you ever seen a clam and they closed that

  • show really tight and you know you'd practically need a tool in order to

  • break it or get it open, that's what we mean.

  • So the clam does that he closes he has the ability to close his shell tightly

  • and he of course he's doing it to protect himself. I guess in the same way

  • you don't want to say something because maybe the thing you say may hurt you or

  • harm you. So you're trying to you clam up you're trying to protect yourself by not

  • saying this, by not revealing this information. All right. So let's continue.

  • Let's look at several examples we have here. Example number one. When the police

  • brought that suspect in for questioning he just clammed up. Yeah. We see this in

  • the movies all the time. They bring someone in. They don't want to talk. Well

  • in the movies they always make it look easy. You know, maybe the police have some

  • dirt or something on this guy to try to make him talk. But sometimes they don't

  • in real life. A lot of times they don't. They just may clam up and they won't say

  • anything. They say nothing really in order to protect themselves. Okay. Let's

  • look at example number two here. When that mother asked her son what he was

  • doing when he cut classes, he just clammed up. So to cut classes ... so I guess

  • he wasn't going to school. He went somewhere else. He was doing something

  • else. He wasn't attending the school. The

  • mother ... the school probably informed the mother. So she knew that he wasn't

  • going to classes and she's saying well if you weren't going to classes, what we were doing ?

  • Where were you ? Why didn't you go ? And of course, he just went silent. He clammed up. He

  • refused to speak and say what he was doing. Okay. Let's look at number three

  • here. When they questioned that politician about his scandal he clammed

  • up and made an excuse to leave. So he clammed up. He just stopped in this case.

  • He's not completely not talking at all. He just will refuse to answer the

  • question. He clammed up and just made some excuse that he's got to go. He wants

  • to run away. He doesn't want to answer these questions. He wants to avoid them. Okay.

  • Anyway, this is perfect examples of how we would use it . I hope you got it . I

  • hope it's clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Verb Phrase 141. The verb phrase today is to

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