In this mini episode, you will learn the interesting expression “Put your money where your mouth is” (and two similar expressions).
Episode 441 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the interesting expression “Put your money where your mouth is” (and two similar expressions). Send your questions about English and your comments and suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello, everyone! This is Meredith, from Shanghai, China. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 441 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I am going to teach you a strange but common expression. The expression is “Put your money where your mouth is.” Put, your, mone,y where, your, mouth, is.
What a strange expression, “Put your money where your mouth is.” What does this expression mean? When do we use this expression?
Before I try to explain where this expression comes from, let me just tell you what it means. We say, “Put your money where your mouth is” when we want to tell somebody, “Don’t just say something. You need to do something. Don’t just tell us what you believe, or what you care about, or what you support. Instead, you have to do something. You have to show us that you believe this, or care about this, or support this.” In other words, it’s not enough to say something—it’s not enough to do something with your mouth. You need to do something.
But why does this expression mean that? Why do we say, “Put your money where your mouth is”? Why do we say anything about money? I think the idea is this: If you want to show somebody that you care about something, or believe in something, you need to invest in it. You need to pay money to show that you really do care about it. When we use this expression, we are almost never really talking about money. We are really just saying, “Instead of telling me that you believe something, you need to show me that you believe it. It’s not enough to say something—you need to do something.”
One thing that’s interesting is that I can think of two other strange expressions that work the same way and mean the same thing.
One of those expressions is this: “Put up or shut up.” That’s put, up, or, shut, up. What does this mean? That means something like this: “If you want me to know that you care about something, you need to do something and not just talk about something.” It’s not enough to talk about something. You need to do something.
How does this expression, “Put up or shut up,” mean that? I think originally, in this expression, “put up” comes from the idea of investing money or risking or gambling or betting money. “Put up” can mean to risk some money or to invest some money. Again, when we use this expression, we are not usually talking about money. We usually are saying you need to do something and not just talk about something. In this case, it means “If you are not willing to do something about this, then I don’t want to hear you talk about it anymore.”
The other expression that’s very, very similar is this: “Talk is cheap.” Take is cheap. That means just talking about something is easy. It doesn’t cost any money. Talking about something is easy, but doing something about it is difficult. Doing something about it really shows us that you care. If all you are doing is talking about something, well, that doesn’t really mean very much to us. It doesn’t really show that you care about this or you really believe in this. Because talk is cheap. Talking about something is easy. It’s very cheap. Anyone can do it. If you want to show us that you really care, you need to do something.
Those three expressions—“Put your money where your mouth is,” “Put up or shut up,” and “Talk is cheap”—all mean basically the same thing. They mean it’s more important to do something than to just talk about something.
I think these three expressions are very interesting and very common. And I think they are three expressions that you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 441 of Everybody ESL. Remember: If you have any questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Meredith recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode. And until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!