On being cheap.

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ChrisGreaves
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On being cheap.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I'm frugal.
Thrifty you might say.

So why, being thrifty, if I splash out on an expensive holiday/dinner/breadstick am I labelled as a spendthrift?

P.S. I wasn't always thrifty; back when I was thirty and ...
An expensive day out: Wallet and Grimace

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Rudi
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Re: On being cheap.

Post by Rudi »

Its one of those irregularities in the English language...like "rush hour" where no-one can rush anywhere??!
Spendthrift should have more aptly been called: Savethrift...but this does not roll of the tongue as easily, so our ancestors must have preferred spendthrift!
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Rudi

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BobH
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Re: On being cheap.

Post by BobH »

Thrift is a state of having saved. If you spend your thrift, you have thereby deprived yourself of it. The combination seems perfectly logical to me. Now if it were "spendthrifty" I could see the oxymoron . . . without even having to look in the mirror.
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GeoffW
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Re: On being cheap.

Post by GeoffW »

I agree with Bob.

You may have had thrift, in the sense of savings, but now you're spending it.

It's interesting that the orgin of thrift is the same as the origin of thrive.

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: On being cheap.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:Thrift is a state of having saved. If you spend your thrift, you have thereby deprived yourself of it.
Got it!
Thanks Bob, that does make sense when you put it like that.
An expensive day out: Wallet and Grimace