Hold one’s feet to the fire—施壓,逼迫,究責

to pressure someone to consent to or undertake something (to maintain pressure on someone in order to induce him/her to comply with one’s desires, to make someone feet pressure or stress, to cause pain) (Or, to hold someone accountable for his/her actions)

Examples:

  1. The only way you’ll get him to agree is to hold his feet to the fire.
  2. Netizens have been holding his feet to the fire to take the pictures down from the website.

(NY Times, 2019/01/02)

“This is legacy-building time,” Jennifer Lawless, an expert on women in politics at the University of Virginia told The New York Times. “If she can be the person who is remembered for holding Trump accountable, or not letting him put forward facts that are not facts, if she can be the one who just calmly sits there and hold his feet to the fire, in a lot of ways, that’s just as important as anything else she does.”

女性政治人物專家,維琴尼亞大學教授Jennifer Lawless指出,現在正是建立傳統的時候,要是大家都記得是裴洛西向川普總統究責,或者不再讓他指鹿為馬,要是她能好整以暇地用各種辦法威逼總統,那可就跟她別的成就一樣重要。

Photos: teenvogue, avaaston

Sound (中文解釋): ICRT podcast