“The expression is ‘Can you hold the fort?’ not ‘Hold down the fort.’ If I ask you to ‘hold the fort’ the metaphor I’m employing is perfectly clear: you and I are in the fort together, holding out against the enemies of the fort, who are besieging the fort. I now have to pop out of the fort for a bit, to get some printer toner or take the cat to the vet. While I do this - don’t worry about how I’ll get past the besieging enemy, I have a secret tunnel and a false beard - while I do this, I want you to ‘hold the fort’, so that when I come back, we’ll both still have the fort. A perfectly reasonable metaphor, embodying a sound military strategy. If I ask you to ‘hold down the fort’, what the hell am I talking about? ‘Hold down the fort while I go out because as you know it’s an inflatable hover-fort, and once relieved of my weight it might float off into the sky.’ ‘Hold down the fort and when I get back, the two of us can tickle the fort!’ No. Meaningless. Stop it.”
- David Mitchell’s Soapbox: Dear America…