People often say that money talks. They mean that a person with a lot of money can say how he or she wants things done. But it is not easy to earn enough money to gain this kind of power.
Ask anyone in a business. They will tell you that it is a jungle out there. The expression probably began because the jungle is filled with wild animals and unknown dangers that threaten people. Sometimes people in business feel competing businesses are as dangerous as wild animals. And they feel that unknown dangers in the business world threaten the survival of their business.
● 在中国有句古话――“有钱能使鬼推磨”，言下之意，钱是万能的，有了钱，万事都好办。在英语里，也有与之对应的表达，就是“money talks”。从字面上不难理解，都能开口说话了，可见钱有多大的能耐。当然，这并不是一个非常正确的观念，在现实生活中，很多东西是金钱买不到的。
● 词组“it is a jungle out there”直译为“一片丛林”，用来形容商界的情形，我们不妨这样看：丛林中的野生动物以及其他一些潜在危险处处威胁着人们，一不小心便会丧命，常常让人感到措手不及；而在商界也如是，你永远无法知道你的竞争对手甚至是合作伙伴手里拿的究竟是什么牌，必须时刻保持警惕，提防着陷阱和欺诈。
People in business have to be careful if they are to survive the jungle out there. They must not be led into making bogus investments. Bogus means something that is not real.
Nobody is sure how the word got started. But it began to appear in American newspapers in the 1800s. A newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, said the word came from a criminal whose name was Borghese. The newspaper said Borghese wrote checks to people although he did not have enough money in the bank. After he wrote the checks, he would flee from town. So, people who were paid with his checks received nothing. The newspaper said Americans shortened and changed the criminal’s name Borghese, to bogus.
People trying to earn money also must be aware of being ripped off. A person who is ripped off has had something stolen, or at least has been treated very unfairly.
A writer for the magazine “American Speech” said he first saw the expression used in 1971. It was on a sign that a student carried during a protest demonstration at a university. The message on the sign was that the student felt ripped off, or cheated.
Perhaps the best way to prevent getting ripped off in business is to not try to get rich quickly. To be successful, a person in business works hard and tries to get down to brass tacks.
This expression means to get to the bottom or most important part of something. For example, a salesman may talk and talk about his product without saying the price. You get down to brass tacks when you say, “it sounds good, but how much does it cost?”
Word expert Charles Funk thinks the expression comes from sailors on ships. They clean the bottom of a boat. When they have removed all the dirt, they are down to the brass tacks, the copper pieces that hold the boat together.
So, if we get down to brass tacks, we can prevent ripoffs and bogus ways of earning money in that jungle out there. And, some good luck will help, too.
● 既然危险丛生，那么商界人士就得保持清醒头脑，理智分析行情，不应被虚假的表象所迷惑而作出错误的判断，从而可能导致非常惨重的损失。“bogus”一词就是“虚假的、伪造的”的意思，至于它的来源，有一种说法是与一个叫Borghese的罪犯有关。马萨诸塞州波士顿市的一份报纸称，Borghese给人们开空头支票，然后逃离小镇，而收到他支票的人们什么也得不到，后来美国人把这个罪犯的名字简化并作了些小改变，就成了我们今天所看到的“bogus”。
● 从字面上看，“rip off”是“欺骗、宰”的意思，也就是不公平的交易中，消费者被卖家欺骗，支付了高于商品实际价值很多的价钱。关于“rip off”的出处，美国杂志《名人演讲》的一位撰稿人说，他在1971年第一次见到这种说法，当时是在一所大学的示威活动中，一位学生高举着一块标语牌，抗议自己被欺骗了。
● 想在复杂的商界脱颖而出获得成功，不被各种假象迷惑，不被卑鄙之徒欺骗，有秘诀吗？当然有！那就是“down to brass tacks”。练气功、踩在铜钉上？当然不是，而是稳扎稳打，踏实工作。“down to brass tacks”的意思就是触及事物最底部和最重要的部分。词汇专家Charles Funk认为，这个短语来自轮船上的水手，他们每次清洗完污垢后，就能触及到船底的黄铜钉。