— VOA Learning English — Words and Their Stories Source: Voice of America Learning English (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/) Licence: Public domain (work of the U.S. federal government, 17 U.S.C. §105) Audio is served by the publisher; Budi does not host or modify it.
0:01And now, words and their stories from VOA Learning English. On this program we explore words and expressions in the English language. We give examples and notes on usage. Many valuable materials are buried deep inside the ground such as gold oil and diamonds but finding these riches and bringing them to the term pay dirt was used to describe something found in the dirt that could bring you money. Gold is a common example of pay dirt. In fact, word experts say the term dates back to when North America's famous gold rush was happening. By the mid-1800s, thousands of people had come to parts of the United States and Canada to search for gold. The work was hard and dangerous. The weather and terrain presented many difficulties.
1:30Here is an example of how to use pay dirt from Cambridge's online dictionary. Landrushes continued into the 19th century, as lucky prospectors struck pay dirt. However, pay dirt does not have to be a valuable material found in the ground. These days it can also describe something that produces money or profit. Or it can even be the money or the profit itself. Here are some additional examples. Email addresses are the new pay dirt in social media marketing. You can reach a possible buyer in their inbox. The musical group hit pay dirt with their song after it went viral on TikTok. And that gives us the expression to hit paydirt. To hit pay dirt means to do or find something that results in money or success, and like
2:42digging gold, it usually doesn't come easily. It requires work. When you hit pay dirt, you work hard to make money or profit from an idea or activity. We often use the verb hit when using the term pay dirt but sometimes we also say strike pay dirt. This is similar to the expression to strike it rich. Many people have dreams of striking it rich one day. In her book, Gold Rush, author and illustrator Flora DeLarge describes the process of hitting pay dirt. She writes that in order to get large amounts of pay dirt out of the ground, miners would have to break through layers of permafrost to reach the gravel bedrock beneath. This description demonstrates the difficulties faced by miners seeking to strike pay dirt
3:49And that's the end of this Words and Their Stories. Until next time, I'm Ana Mateo.
This transcript was generated automatically from the recording, so it will contain mistakes — especially around names and places.