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 #2 (permalink) Sun Feb 01, 2004 15:10 pm Tight |
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Hi Ariadna,
Please don't beat your brains out! The difference is: 'tightwad' is an American/Canadian English expression and a noun that means someone who doesn't like to spend any money - 'tightfisted' is an adjective describing someone who again doesn't like to spend any money. The idea comes from keeping your fist/hands closed so that you don't open them up to get money from your wallet/handbag. In fact 'tight' on its own can also describe the same thing. There is a character in a novel by Charles Dickens called 'A Christmas Carol' whose name is Scrooge who is well known for holding on to his money. This name has gone into the language and to call someone a scrooge is the same as 'tightwad.'
Take care of those brains
Alan
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Alan
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| #3 (permalink) Sun Feb 01, 2004 18:55 pm Tight |
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Hi Alan! It was extremely interesting .
Thank you . Have a nice week.
Ariadna.  |
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Ariadna
I'm new here and I like it ;-)
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
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| #4 (permalink) Tue Feb 14, 2006 18:48 pm Scrooge |
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| Alan wrote: |
| The idea comes from keeping your fist/hands closed so that you don't open them up to get money from your wallet/handbag. |
Funnily (or sadly) enough, the mental picture I always get at the word ‘tightfisted’ is of a big, pudgy, hermetically closed fist, knuckles white with the effort of clenching a handful of money without ever dropping any, under any circumstances whatsoever. So it turns out that my character is even more of a scrooge (they would never dream of buying a purse – it’s far too expensive!). |
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Conchita
Language Coach
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Location: Madrid, Spain
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| #5 (permalink) Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:01 am Tight |
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| Alan wrote: |
| The difference is: 'tightwad' is an American/Canadian English expression and a noun that means someone who doesn't like to spend any money - |
You may also like to know that, at least in North America (I don't know about elsewhere), we can say that someone carries around a "wad of cash" or a "wad of money". A wad is a tightly packed ball of paper. People peel bills off their "wad", so I suppose a tightwad is someone whose money is wadded so tightly together that it's hard to peel the bills off. We sometimes say someone "flashed a wad of bills", meaning he showed off a big roll of banknotes. A lot of our money expressions have this word "wad" in them. |
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Jamie (K)
Guest
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| #6 (permalink) Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:07 am Wad |
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Hi,
Wad has the same idea of a large pack of notes of money in British English. Remember also that film starring Clint Eastwood called a Fistful of Dollars, which somehow conveys a related idea.
Alan
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