Learn English – You pays your money, you takes your choice

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From BBC News on Airport expansion comes the quote:

But the Gatwick scheme is better for the local environment, and it should be easier to deliver politically and financially. You pays your money, you takes your choice.

What does You pays your money, you takes your choice. mean? It is clearly grammatically incorrect. Googling unhelpfully results in forum posts answered with "just google it". What does it mean, and why is it you pays rather than you pay without an s?

Best Answer

Those who come across this question might find helpful this article in the NY Times.

The origin, as dozens of other Lexicographic Irregulars stepped forward to say, is British, probably Cockney. The first time the saying saw print was in an 1846 Punch. A cartoon entitled ''The Ministerial Crisis'' has a showman telling a customer, ''Which ever you please, my little dear. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.''

The phrase still means ''The right of choice is to the buyer,'' or a more sophisticated ''Power belongs to those who have paid their dues,'' but a much different sense has emerged. ''The phrase is used today,'' writes Edward C. Stephens, dean of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, ''not so much as an invitation to choice as it is a rejoinder to complaint. It seems to be similar in intent to 'You made your bed, now lie in it.' Another variant is 'Look, if you don't like it, you can just lump it.' ''

However in this particular context, I would argue that it's a gambling reference -- you don't know the outcome until you roll the dice. It might work, it might not. You won't know until you make your bet and make a choice.

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