Walk the talk

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:44:08 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:55:01 +0100, Michael Quinion wrote:
>
>>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?
>
>There was some discussion of this expression on alt.usage.english last
>year. Here are my contributions:
>
>http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/923f48ee1548477a
>http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/37f9c0158b59224b
>
>I suggest a possible connection to the expression "walk it like you talk
>it", popular around 1970. That would fit the chronology if "walk the
>talk" began to be used in the mid-'70s -- Newspaperarchive has a cite
>from 1976 quoting Johnny Cash.
>
>As for the full "walk the walk/talk the talk" version, I initially
>speculated that this began as a catchphrase among members of Alcoholics
>Anonymous (based on a 1969 Washington Post cite). This hunch is further
>corroborated by a Newspaperarchive cite from 1962:
>
>-----
>Southtown Economist (Chicago, Ill.), Apr 15, 1962, p. 6/3
>Thurston also believes that as AA members, he and his staff are qualified
>to carry out the program because "if you have never walked the walk, you
>can't talk the talk."
>-----

Coincidentally enough, someone on alt.usage.english just asked about
another variant, "to walk one's talk". Factiva dates this one back to
1987, not surprisingly in the context of recovery from alcoholism:

-----
Seattle Times, Jan 4, 1987, p. B1
"They know me, they trust me, I'm the only friend they've got," Dutch
said. "I'm no secret, they know I used to be one of them. They know I'm
an ex-drunk. I walk my talk. That means I do what I talk about. I do
what I can out there, not just talk about it. That's a phrase we have,
'walk your talk.'"
-----


--Ben Zimmer