[Idiom] Take hold/hold on?

[Nima1000]

Could you possibly tell me what differnce in meaning is between these?

1. The young woman took hold of his arms.
2. The young woman hold on to his arms.

 

[emsr2d2]

Could you possibly tell me what the difference in meaning is between these?

1. The young woman took hold of his arms.
2. The young woman hold on to his arms.

With sentence 2, you need either "held on to his arms" or "holds on to his arms".

The first sentence could describe, for example, a nurse who takes one of his arms in each hand in order to examine them or to hold them in front of herself. In an extreme possibility, the man's arms have been amputated and the young woman for some reason picks them up and does something with them.
The second sentence sounds more dramatic. Perhaps the young woman has slipped over the edge of a cliff and the only reason she is not falling is that she is hanging on to his arms.

Neither sentence is very natural, to be honest and I can't think of an everyday situation where I would use either.

If a woman and a man are walking along side by side and she slips her hand between his arm and his body in order to walk along linked together, we say "She took his arm".

 

[Nima1000]

Thank you very much but could you give me a pic about sentence 1?
i cant imagine your describtion for number one.because i need aan image.
thank you.

 

[emsr2d2]

OK, this is a little strange but I will try. If you click HERE, you will see a photo of an amputated arm (I did warn you!) Imagine that there are two buckets in a room. They both contain an arm. Both arms belonged to the same man. A young woman comes in and picks up one arm in one of her hands and the other arm in her other hand. She has "taken hold of his arms".

Sometimes, I wish I hadn't started some of these replies! ;-)