Wood On Words » Get a grip

Get a grip

May 28th, 2008 at 06:28am Barry Wood

There are three choices with the phrase “get hold of,” and that is by far the preferred one.

A distant second is “get a hold of.”

Way down at the bottom — one usage expert calls it “a horror” — is the colloquial “get ahold of.”

If you’re using this or a similar phrase, take hold of the first one.

If you’re quoting someone who used an “a” in there, grab hold of the second one. Notice it reads the same as the third one.

So there’s really no reason to write “get ahold of,” except when someone is telling you not to, as I just did.

Entry Filed under: get hold of

1. Lara\'s Web | May 28th, 2008 at 9:25 am

I really am learning things from you. Keep it up. I would like to become an official Woodie.
2. ABigWood | May 28th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

I like Wordz. Thankz fer teauching me abut dem. I fer realz appreciates them. Ur biggest Woody
-AWood
3. Barry Wood | May 28th, 2008 at 11:40 pm

As far as I know, all it takes to become “an official Woodie” is to express the desire to do so. In other words, you’re in. And thanks for your interest in our wonderfully wacky language.
4. Kirsten Walstedt | February 21st, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Dear Mr. Wood,

My friends are debating whether “a hold of” is ungrammatical or at least unidiomatic. I have said it most of my life and as I come from a highly educated family I find my pride wounded by other highly educated friends telling me “a hold of” is used only by the ignorant. I was trained in college and grad school in linguistics and I am aware that linguists are not supposed to make judgments about whether something is “correct” or not. That is a job for grammarians. But I have a a noisy inner grammarian that still screams that it wants to be correct at all times.

I googled “get a hold of vs. get hold of” in an attempt to find some outside authority to back me up and I found your site. But your article does not make explicit whether “get a hold of” is supported by the historical record. Would you help me on this point? I would be grateful.

Yours,

KW

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