If You Believe That, I Have Something To Sell You

Andrea Sansone teaches English as a second language, and on our Facebook group, she wrote,

I recently learned that the sentence, if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you, is not an expression that English learners are familiar with.

Is this a New York City area regional expression?

If you don’t use that particular expression to indicate being conned, what expression do you use?

And that prompted a lively discussion.

Oh, yeah, it sure did.

Yeah.

I don’t think it’s particularly regional, though.

No, no.

Often it’s not a Brooklyn Bridge to sell you. It’s just a bridge to sell you.

A bridge to sell you.

Because it’s that famous scam, right?

Right, right.

There was more than one scam like that.

There was a fellow named George C. Parker who produced these impressive forged documents that he sold to people who wanted to try to put toll booths on the Brooklyn Bridge.

He’s in the rights and permission to collect tolls on the bridge.

Yeah.

Different people brought up the idea of I’ve got swampland to sell you in Florida.

And several people mentioned the George Strait song, which I didn’t know, but apparently there’s a George Strait song.

I think it’s called Oceanfront Property.

And he says, if you leave me, I won’t miss you and I won’t ever take you back.

Girl, your memory won’t ever haunt me because I don’t love you.

Now, if you’ll buy that, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona.

From my front porch, you can see the sea.

I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona.

If you buy that, I’ll throw the Golden Gate in for free.

So it’s just taking advantage of people’s bad understanding of geography, right?

Yeah.

Because if you didn’t, Arizona sounds exotic, right?

The west, it’s all about the Pacific Ocean. Right, never mind that Arizona has to drive to San Diego to see the sea.

If you believe that, I’ve got a X to sell you.

Yeah, yeah. Are there others? Might be.

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