hold the check
v. phr.— «At yesterday’s hearing, Rep. Delmar Burridge said he hopes a law change will give incentive for low-level members who don’t “hold the check” or “hold the cap”—street lingo he heard in his 35-year career in juvenile court in Philadelphia—to “snitch.”» —“Lawmakers target top thugs” by Lauren R. Dorgan Concord Monitor (New Hampshire) Apr. 10, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Language is always evolving, and that’s also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for “telephone” was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you’re holding an old-fashioned candlestick...
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...