Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles 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.
A2 US clam verb phrase phrase protect tightly mother English Tutor Nick P Verb Phrase (141) Clam Up 5 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/07/01 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary