The other day I said "ends meet" and it bothered me, not just because I'm trying to make ends meet. I know that the phrase means to live within your means but just barely. I started wondering why I say this and why other people say this. We all use it so often that it doesn't have a lot of meaning anymore, especially during a recession. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on promotional tote bags. This is one of the facts that I couldn't get a concrete answer to. I found theories like:
The expression is actually called ends meat. Butchers had to use filler during the depression to make meat look like sausage.
Ends meet comes from accounting where you try to make your income match the expenses so the bottom columns meet.
This is one of those phrases with a lot of different opinions and guesses but no one knows for sure where it comes from or why we say it.
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