Remember good old ABBA singing about money and how important it is for us? It’s not the only case, when pennies are mentioned in the English language. A great way to demonstrate your fluency in the language is to use idiomatic expressions when talking about the ‘ka-ching’. Make sure to read on to learn some of the most popular and useful idioms based on money, in particular on having and not having one.
‘To Pay Through the Nose’ is an expression used to describe the moment, when you’re required to pay a really high price for something. Some language experts tend to say that this expression came into our routine from the Vikings times, when they slit the noses of anyone in the conquered city unwilling to pay their taxes.
The proverb ‘In for a Penny, In for a Pound’ would be a big help in case you start something that you may also finish, even if you will have to exert more efforts than you thought you would. As for the original meaning of the expression, it was that if the punishment was the same, an individual would commit the offence that guarantees the greatest profit.
When you decide to buy a brand new car and all you’re going to have in your wallet is a huge hole, it means that you will most likely ‘Break the Bank’. When using this expression, you’re letting people know you’re left without money and your life is literally financially ruined. But that’s just half the trouble. The bad buy demonstrates that you actually ‘Have More Money than Sense’ or, speaking simply, you’re just being foolish with your finds and your abilities to manage them properly leaves a lot to be desired.
If you feel like buying a shiny-toy car is far beyond your financial limits, it’s time for the ‘penny-pinching’, i.e. saving money in order to carry the back as reasonably as possible. But in case things are going even worse and not only do you not have money, but you have also lost your job, it’s the time when you are ‘Down and Out’. In other words, financial and emotional difficulties are just around the corner!
And finally, it’s good to know that even though we live in a material world, ‘the Best Things in Life Are Free’. In other words, money isn’t everything and all the intellectual values like love, friendship and health can’t be purchased.
English language is full of hilarious expressions and slang word combinations that at some point one may find pretty daunting. The hardest part of it is that many of them are idiomatic, meaning they are used to add certain emphasis on whatever is described. The best way to keep them in mind is to have as much contact with the English language as possible. Media, books and TV shows – choose your own way to memorize the idiomatic expressions to make use of them in everyday life.