Photo credit: obozrevatel.com
Today I went to a garage that a friend of a friend has recommended to see how much it would cost to fix my car (here’s what happened). It’s quite funny to look at people’s facial expressions when they see the damage, and I assume people who work in garages must have seen all kinds of things. They forget all about typical English understatement and say ‘Oh, it’s very bad’ or just ‘Flipping hell!’
Anyway, after the initial shock the guy gave me a quote of roughly £350, but said ‘It’s only a rough estimate, don’t hold me to it‘ (implying that it could be more).
Here are a couple more examples:
– You promised me that you would buy six of them, and I’m going to hold you to your promise (The Free Dictionary).
– I was talking to my friend and was saying ” I think it’s the week after that but don’t hold me to it ” We were talking about the October Holidays. By ‘don’t hold me to it’ I meant ‘don’t take my word for it’ .. i would also like to know how to say that [in French] (Wordreference.com).
Confessions of the Linguistic Spy 