Follow the money?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Follow the money?

For example, if the American governor of a state helps award a shale gas contract to an oil firm, it is perhaps worth the while of a newspaper reporter to find out if there’s a lot of money involved in the process – money, that is, to facilitate the process. And, if the reporter finds out, for example, that the oil firm had previously contributed generously to the mayor’s campaign in his running for the mayoral office, and that the mayor’s daughter got her tuition fees paid for by someone other than her parents, you’ll get the idea of what it means to follow the money trail.

Follow the money trail, or simply follow the money is an American idiom. Like many other American idioms, this is simple and easy to understand. This one, in fact, can almost be taken at face value in its entirety. Follow the money is probably inspired by police officers who believe they can usually get to the bottom of a crime by following the money trail – where the money comes and goes, and who stands to benefit the most from committing the crime currently under investigation.

If for example, an aged woman is killed in her own bedroom and her young husband stands to gain the most from her death because he’s recently been made the chief beneficiary in her will, rest assured the police will ask the young widower a lot of questions.

“Follow the money”, incidentally, is made popular by “All the President’s Men”, a 1976 film about the investigations by two Washington Post journalists who eventually uncovered what is now known as the Watergate scandal. In the film, one of the reporters were indeed advised to “follow the money” while in real life, there is no evidence that any of them ever got such advice from anyone.