Make Ends Meet

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Randy.

Hi, Randy, where are you calling from?

Calling from Brad Rove, Vermont.

Welcome to the show. How can we help?

Okay, so I’ve heard the term very often, making ends meet.

And I’m curious about the actual, the origin of it.

I understand what it means and how it’s used, but where it comes from, I’m not sure of.

But I always get a mental image of, well, it comes down to being a meat pie.

And it’s kind of not very appetizing, and I want to know more about it.

I want to know the original origin of it.

So hopefully you can help me.

So in your mind, it’s M-E-A-T and not M-E-E-T?

As a child, like, hearing it, I didn’t understand.

That’s just kind of how it morphed into being an adult eating meat pie.

So, right.

Making ends meet.

So, like, you’re putting meat on the table.

Correct. Something like that. I think of a meat pie, even though that has nothing to do with the connotation.

Oh, because it’s made out of the leftovers, the ends, and they’re all together, and you make one more meal out of the meat?

Yes.

Oh, I could see. So the scraps, the bit of this and the bit of that that aren’t a full dish in themselves.

Yeah.

Okay.

That’s very picturesque.

Yeah.

It’s not one of the prevailing theories.

No.

Right. I hope not. Good.

No, because the meet in this sense is M-E-E-T, to meet, like for two things to meet, to go together.

And we’re not really sure of how that shapes up, how the origin shapes up,

But it could have to do with tailoring and dressmaking, you know,

When you’re trying to make sure you have enough cloth available to meet

So that your garment covers whatever you are trying to cover.

Some people have suggested that it comes from the idea of splicing ends of ropes together to make sure that you’re covering whatever you need to cover with the length of that rope.

And there are phrases like that in French and Polish.

It just has to do with things coming together.

And another theory, actually, is that it has to do with a ledger and the income and the outgo.

And you want the bottom of that ledger to meet.

You want to meet your expenses, in other words.

All right.

It’s like an accounting.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

The phrase is older than double entry accounting, though, so that kind of doesn’t really work.

There’s another thing about that.

I want to talk about the rope one in a second, which is a lot of people favorite because people love for some reason the nautically originated words.

But it’s the idea also of scraps of rope, which you just, you know, broken rope or old rope that you then splice together so you have one long useful rope.

So that kind of matches a little bit with what your vision in your mind of the meat pie was made out of scraps.

Right.

I believe, I have a strong feeling that what we’re talking about here is the money lasting through the end of the calendar period.

Like I have enough money to pay my rent at the end of the month means the end of my money matches the end of the month.

Or the end of whatever amount of money matches the end of whatever calendar period.

But all of these are supposition and we don’t have strong enough evidence for any of them.

Because making ends meet just kind of pops up, doesn’t it?

Yeah.

50s or something like that.

So, Randy, we hope we’ve helped.

Yes, you have.

And I just want to reiterate the fact that I don’t think making ends meet is about a meat pie,

But I just wanted a little bit more clarity, you know, as far as the origins of it.

Absolutely.

We understand.

Thanks for your call.

I really appreciate it.

Great.

I love your show.

Thank you.

Thanks, Randy.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

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