meaning of "stand it off"

[lost_soul]

Hi,

I just read this sentence:

[Mister Micawber]

.
'[Stand it off' sounds odd to me in both sentences.
.
_________________
Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mr. Micawber

[Jamie (K)]

Your original expression doesn't sound so odd to me.

Think of two cowboys standing face to face in a duel. They stare at each other for a while, and then they either shoot or one surrenders. That waiting time is a "standoff". So your first sentence means that when the guy gets the urge, he just stares the urge in the face (symbolically speaking) and doesn't act on it. The urge then "surrenders" and goes away, much as the other cowboy might in a duel. He has "stood off" the urge.

When two people face each other for a very long time -- seemingly forever -- and neither one shoots or surrenders, that's called a "Mexican standoff". In modern life, an example of a Mexican standoff would be this: In some ghetto streets in my city, there are lines of cars parked on both sides, and room for just one car to pass between them. Sometimes two drivers come face to face, but each of them is apparently too proud (stupidly proud) to pull over into the parking lane and let the other one pass. Their cars come nose to nose, and the drivers just sit there for minutes and don't move. We call that kind of confrontation a Mexican standoff (even though the participants are definitely not Mexican).

Your sentence doesn't make any sense:
"I can't stand his presence. I always try to stand him off as far as possible."
What you have written means that the speaker stands as far as possible away from him and just looks at him, waiting for him to act or go away. It sounds very weird.

This makes sense:
"I can't stand his presence. I always try to stay clear of him as much as possible."
It means you stay away from him, as far away as you can.

[lost_soul]

Thank you very much ! Now I think I see the meaning.
Going back to those 2 guys in their cars waiting for each other to give way, can I say about them this phrase:
They're standing each other off ?
_________________
Alex

A native speaker of Russian

[Jamie (K)]