[ti:Money Talks] [ar:Susan Clark] [al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]I'm Susan Clark with [00:13.27]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, [00:15.41]a program in Special English [00:17.81]on the Voice of America. [00:20.05]People often say that money talks. [00:24.28]They mean that a person [00:26.72]with a lot of money can say [00:29.26]how he or she wants things done. [00:33.09]But it is not easy [00:35.23]to earn enough money [00:36.97]to gain this kind of power. [00:39.56]Ask anyone in a business. [00:42.60]They will tell you that [00:45.09]it is a jungle out there. [00:47.73]The expression probably [00:50.22]began because the jungle [00:52.06]is filled with wild animals [00:54.65]and unknown dangers [00:56.99]that threaten people. [00:58.58]Sometimes people in business [01:01.42]feel competing businesses [01:03.92]are as dangerous as wild animals. [01:07.50]And they feel that unknown dangers [01:10.73]in the business world threaten [01:12.97]the survival of their business. [01:15.56]People in business have to be careful [01:19.64]if they are to survive [01:21.38]the jungle out there. [01:23.32]They must not be led into [01:26.06]making bogus investments. [01:28.35]Bogus means something [01:31.29]that is not real. [01:33.23]Nobody is sure [01:35.42]how the word got started. [01:37.41]But it began to appear [01:39.75]in American newspapers [01:41.49]in the eighteen hundreds. [01:43.89]A newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts [01:49.05]said the word came from a criminal [01:51.64]whose name was Borghese. [01:54.73]The newspaper said Borghese [01:57.66]wrote checks to people [01:59.35]although he did not have enough [02:01.74]money in the bank. [02:03.35]After he wrote the checks, [02:05.50]he would flee from town. [02:07.60]So, people who were paid [02:10.33]with his checks received nothing. [02:13.92]The newspaper said Americans [02:16.75]shortened and changed the criminal's [02:19.79] name Borghese, to bogus. [02:22.87]People trying to earn money [02:26.16]also must be aware of being ripped off. [02:30.19]A person who is ripped off [02:32.88]has had something stolen, [02:35.61]or at least has been [02:37.26]treated very unfairly. [02:39.35]A writer for the magazine [02:42.18]"American Speech" said [02:44.67]he first saw the expression [02:46.46]used in nineteen seventy-one. [02:49.20]It was on a sign that a student [02:51.69]carried during a protest [02:53.88]demonstration at a university. [02:56.71]The message on the sign [02:58.67]was that the student [03:00.17]felt ripped off, or cheated. [03:03.30]Perhaps the best way [03:06.04]to prevent getting ripped off [03:08.04]in business is to not try [03:10.63]to get rich quickly. [03:12.57]To be successful, a person [03:15.11]in business works hard and tries [03:17.99]to get down to brass tacks. [03:20.98]This expression means to get [03:24.21]to the bottom or most important [03:26.70]part of something. [03:28.65]For example, a salesman may talk [03:31.89]and talk about his product [03:33.78]without saying the price. [03:36.42]You get down to brass tacks [03:39.60]when you say, "it sounds good, [03:42.59]but how much does it cost?" [03:45.18]Word expert Charles Funk thinks [03:50.05]the expression comes [03:51.40]from sailors on ships. [03:53.54]They clean the bottom of a boat. [03:56.72]When they have removed all the dirt, [03:59.86]they are down to the brass tacks, [04:02.94]the copper pieces [04:04.88]that hold the boat together. [04:07.23]So, if we get down to brass tacks, [04:11.16]we can prevent ripoffs and bogus [04:14.91]ways of earning money in that [04:17.29]jungle out there. [04:18.94]And, some good luck will help, too. [04:22.02](MUSIC) [04:33.62]This WORDS AND THEIR STORIES [04:36.22]was written by Jeri Watson. [04:38.70]I'm Susan Clark.