Walk the talk

[Michael Quinion]

There are 153,000 examples of "walk the talk" on Google. I know of
"you can talk the talk but can you walk the walk" (though my erratic
memory can't tell me the source, of even if that's the right way
around). Is "walk the talk" a deliberate conflation, or is it an
error (not an eggcorn, but what kind of error?) that has become
sanctified by usage?


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Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org