Egg on
Today’s expression is “egg on.” This is a funny expression; don’t ask me why it means what it does. Like I said before, it has nothing to do with eggs. To egg someone on is to encourage someone to do something that’s either wrong, foolish, or not in their best interest.
Think back to when you were a kid, think about the kids at your school. There were always the kids who were willing to break the rules. And then there were the kids who egged them on. Those were the ones—and you know who I’m talking about—they didn’t break the rules themselves, no, no, no, never. But they encouraged the others to break the rules. They egged other kids on.
They said things like, “Hey wouldn’t it be funny if someone threw a French fry across the cafeteria?” And then sure enough someone else would go and do it! The first kid who makes the suggestion is egging the other kids on. He’s encouraging the bad behavior.
Kids don’t know it at the time, but teachers are wise to this. The teachers understand there are innocent-looking kids who never break the rules but are nonetheless egging other kids on. So teachers will sometimes intervene, and they’ll look at the smiling, innocent looking kids and they’ll say, “Don’t egg him on.” That means, “don’t encourage him to misbehave.”
I say “him,” of course girls can egg one another on, too. It’s just the girls are a little less obvious about their rule-breaking, at least that’s the way I remember it!
Now fast-forward 15 years, the kids on the playground are now online shoppers. And they get to the checkout page and they see a big number…gosh, I didn’t realize all these clothes cost so much, they might think. And then they remember their friendly influencer buddies on TikTok had a great suggestion: just buy now, pay later ! It makes the whole thing cheaper!
The influencers make money when their followers buy stuff, so the influencers want you to spend, spend, spend. And so they egg their followers on by saying, “hey, if you can’t afford this, just buy now, pay later.” They encourage the bad behavior.
There is no economic rationale to borrow money to buy makeup or clothing. That is a bad habit. The influencers don’t care. It’s not like they have to pay the bills; it’s not like it’s their credit that will get ruined. So they egg people on and say, your wardrobe is out of date, you need to replace every single piece of clothing you own, and if it seems expensive, well just buy now, pay later. They encourage bad behavior; they’re egging people on.
Remember I said, “egg on” is to encourage someone to do something wrong (like throwing food in a cafeteria) or foolish (like going into debt to buy clothes) or not in their best interest. We talked a few weeks ago about Elon Musk’s drive to acquire Twitter . And there was a story in the media that an inner circle of advisors around Elon Musk was egging him on to acquire Twitter because they—these advisors—had grievances against Twitter.
Elon Musk may yet reinvent Twitter and make a massive amount of money off it. It may wind up being great for him and great for society; who knows? Or Musk might get distracted by Twitter and as a result neglect his other businesses, which are much more valuable. If that happens, it will have been a foolish pursuit.
But—and this is according to media stories—there were some people egging Elon Musk on to buy Twitter. They wanted him to buy Twitter for their own selfish reasons, so they encouraged him to pursue buying the company, not because it was good for Elon Musk, not because it was good for the world, but because they had their own selfish reasons. Again, according to media reports.
Quote of the Week
It’s Monday, so I’ve got a quote of the week for you. Here’s one from Pablo Picasso. He said, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” Obviously, he was an artist, so he worked alone. But it’s worth remembering, in our days of back-to-back Zoom calls, that unscheduled time to think and concentrate is necessary to do your best work.
So if your day starts filling up, you have my permission to start declining calendar invites and in your reply paste this quote by Pablo Picasso. Just say—and this can be to anyone in the company—just say, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible,” so I’m afraid I can’t attend this call. Better yet, you can set an email vacation responder for a whole week and reply to everyone, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible” so I’ll reply to your email next week.
See you next time!
Did you see what I just did? I was egging you on! It’s probably not a good idea to paste that quote into an auto-responder, not in your best interest. But unlike the influencers of the world, I’ll at least come clean and admit when I’m egging you on.
One thing that is definitely in your best interest is to follow along with all our lessons, and the best way to do that is as a member at PlainEnglish.com. And there’s even a free membership, which opens up a lot of extra lesson resources, like the transcript, the additional English expression—that’s exclusively on the web site and it’s called “Learn the Lingo.” And below every lesson transcript are two links to English articles that I used to prepare the lesson, so you can always dig deeper and learn more about any topic. That’s the free membership—you don’t even have to pay later to get that free content.
To join, just go to PlainEnglish.com and follow the instructions, pick your plan and get to work, because it is in your best interest to do a little bit every day in English. PlainEnglish.com is where you can do that. Our next lesson will be on Thursday; that’s when I’ll give you an update on a few recent lesson topics. See you then!
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