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Does the phrase "hold up and jump" refer to buttons here, or are the verbs "hold up" and "jump" used to denote two actions without implying any buttons?
You can avoid damage from a throw if you’re fast enough to hold up and jump before you hit the ground.
The sentence is from a fight game.
Given that context, it must be the buttons. But there is no grammar or written clue and you make it clearer by putting the names of the buttons in quote marks:
...hold "up" and "jump"...
This is tricky.
Within the context, "hold up" really only makes sense if it means "hold the 'up' control", which could be pressing a button that's labeled with an up arrow or tilting a joystick upwards. (Button and control names are often written without quotes or any special formatting, just like in your quote.)
But "and jump" is ambiguous. The context is not sufficient to know if holding up will cause you to jump or if you need to do something else that makes you jump. (Some games have a dedicated jump button, and holding up will make you fall slower or cause some effect that isn't jumping.) Here's an example where "and jump" more clearly means "in order to jump":
So i want to host a server to play with friends and ask if theres a command that lets me jump when i only hold space? There are many bhop servers that have this setting where I just hold space and jump but is there a command for this? — stiliyan_13 on Reddit
Here's an example where the button holding does not cause the second thing to happen:
When you want to move multiple rows or columns side by side at once, it would be nice if you could hold B and move to make multiple subselectors instead of having to press B on each individual one. — tesselode on Itch.io
