He wasn't going to hold his breath for her to apologize.

My comments:

If you hold your breath, you stop breathing regularly. That’s when you’re very fascinated by something, the last seconds of a horror film, for instance, when the whole thing comes to a climax and an end.

In our case, he thought he was due an apology from her. But he wasn’t so expectant of it that he would be holding his breath for its coming.

In a similar expression, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

In other words, he did not care so much after all.

After all, she might not care to make an apology at all.

Related stories:

For a kingdom

For all his bark

Take pennies on the dollars

Move the needle

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場(chǎng)無(wú)關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問(wèn)題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國(guó)家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.