Thrifty and Spendthrift

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hello, this is Claudette calling from Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Hello, Claudette, how are you?

Hello.

Welcome to the program.

I am just fine, how are you?

Super duper.

Swell as well.

Well, here’s my question.

A couple of months ago, my husband and I heard about some research that was done where it talked about couples who are marrying their opposites in terms of spending habits.

And so in this research, they said that people who were tightwads tended to marry spendthrifts.

And the word tightwad is kind of easy to wrap your head around, but spendthrift just kind of stuck in my craw, and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind because it makes no sense to me.

Why the word spend would be put together with thrift, and that would result in a word that means a person is spending a lot of money.

In my mind, it should be a person is spending in a thrifty manner.

I can see the confusion there, because it seems like the thrift is describing the act of saving or not spending, right?

That’s right.

It seems contradictory or oxymoronic.

It does seem contradictory.

So I was just curious about where this word came from and why we’re hanging on to it.

I’m sure I’ve talked to other people and they’re just as confused as I am.

Well, Claudette, you’re right.

It sounds a little contradictory, but there’s an easy answer here that I think can explain everything.

Okay.

And it’s that the meaning of thrift has changed.

There’s an old meaning of thrift that we use only in isolated and rare circumstances today.

Okay.

And that is thrift to mean savings or accumulated wealth.

You are actually, when you spend your thrift, you are spending your savings.

You are spending your savings.

Yeah.

Yeah, how’s that?

So we only find it today really in the jargon of finance.

A thrift bank, for example, is another name for a savings and loan association.

So it’s like a savings.

Although they don’t use that themselves.

They do, actually, they do.

Do they?

Yeah, within the financial industry, they do use thrift in a very specific and contained kind of jargonized way.

Yeah, and Claudette, this thrift is related to the word thrive.

Thrift is the result of your thriving.

So it’s your savings and your prosperity.

Okay.

So in your marriage, who’s the spendthrift and who’s the tightwad?

Well, you know, we both looked at each other and said, you’re the spendthrift.

Oh, hello.

Not me, it’s you.

And then we both did it.

I think in our situation, we tend to go back and forth depending on what it is we’re spending on.

So we each have our things that we like to spend on versus things that we’re quite thrifty on.

That makes sense.

Okay, well, Claudette, thanks for calling.

Thanks, Claudette.

Oh, thank you, Martha and Grant.

We listen to your show all the time.

Oh, that’s so nice.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, Claudette was on to something. English is confusing.

If you’re confused about something in English, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or punch us up an email to words@waywordradio.org.