No strings attached?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

No strings attached?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence: All donations came with no strings attached.

My comments:

Put another way, the money (or materials) donated were given to you for free.

Completely free.

Without condition.

In other words, the donor or donors puts you under no obligation – they won’t question as to how you are going to spend the money.

That’s what it means to give somebody a gift with “no strings attached”, which is an American idiom essentially meaning unconditionally.

Strings?

You can understand “string” as the leash attached to pet dogs we see everywhere in the city. The leash attached to the neck of a dog allows its owner to maintain control of the pet. The owner, you see, can always pull at the string – string is a more common word for leash or any such piece of thin rope – whenever its owner deems the dog is straying too far.

As you can see, with such strings attached to the neck, pet dogs are never entirely free. That’s the idea, with the leash reminding the dog all the time who is boss.

Or you can understand the word “string” as the string to a purse.

In olden days in America, many money purses are said to have had strings attached to them which presumably prevent against, say, a pickpocket. Thus figuratively speaking if a housewife is said to hold the string to the purse, it means she’s the one who makes monetary decisions.