"walk-away money"

[Galen Buttitta]

I see it in the sense of *Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?* when Regis would
give a contestant the option to walk away with the money.


On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "walk-away money"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I usually see the first one, but not the second. The first is sometimes
> used to describe a settlement in a nuisance suit or an amount promised
> to be either paid or refunded in case a proposed merger or acquisition
> falls apart. E.g., T-Mobile got guaranteed cash infusion upfront from
> the attempted merger with AT&T, but AT&T got some walk-away money when
> the regulators killed the merger.
>
> The second sense DG proposes sounds to me like "acceptable losses".
> Given this perfectly adequate terminology, I can't imagine frequent use
> of the alternative.
>
>      VS-)
>
> On 11/23/2013 1:22 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> > I see two meanings in active use. Which one, to you, is transparent?
> >
> > I see it refer to money you take to walk away; I also see it as money you
> > leave on the table -- you walk away from -- in a sales context.
> >
> > DanG
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> "Walk-away money" -- transparent in meaning, but I don't see
> >> "walk-away" (presumably an attributive?) in this sense in the
> >> OED.  It's not included in "walk-away  n." under "walk, v."
> >>
> >> Presumably akin to "walk-off" (as in baseball), which has been
> >> discussed recently.  Looking in the OED, I don't see the baseball
> >> sense (can't remember whether that's been discussed).
> >>
> >> Googling Web and Books for "walk-away money", I see only this before
> 2001:
> >> [PDF]  (026-037)PMM Employees 9/25/00 11:20 AM Page 26
> >>
> >>
> https://tice.agroparistech.fr/coursenligne/courses/SOCIOLOGIEETMANAGEME/document/mergers%20and%20acquisition/Peopleprobleminmergers2000McKinsey.pdf?cidReq=SOCIOLOGIEETMANAGEME
> >> The most important factor to consider when you are trying to retain
> >> and motivate people is how much "walk-away" money they receive from the
> >> merger.
> >>
> >> I have not tried to find "walk-away" in the same sense but not with
> >> "money".  There is the usual problem of hyphen = space.
> >>
> >> Joel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org