What Does “Quid Pro Quo” Actually Mean?
As soon as pressure on the investigation of impeachment, the Democrats held the House of Representatives, is enhanced, there is one phrase, which you’ve probably heard of ” quid pro quo “. For example, when President Trump urged Ukraine’s newly elected President to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, was that part of the compensation for the service? And what does that even mean?
“Quid pro quo” is a Latin phrase that translates as “something for something.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “something given or received for something else.” This is a deal. I go to the grocery store, give them a couple bucks, they give me a gallon of milk; one good turn deserves another. I sit with my friend’s son for a couple of hours, she brings me home-made banana bread in return; one good turn deserves another.
These are typical everyday examples, but context is everything, and quid is starting to take on a negative connotation:
I’m not here to debate whether the conversation was a quid pro quo Trump or just ask a friendly (although, as you can imagine, I have an opinion). Today I just work as a connoisseur of words, who is interested in how the language develops. Here again, Columbia Journalism Review analyzes that quid pro quo may actually return to its more negative roots.
“Quid pro quo” has shadow roots and seems to be returning to them. According to M.V. (Merriam-Webster), in the early 16th century, the “quid pro quo” came from the pharmacist and “referred to the process of substituting one drug for another — whether deliberately (and sometimes fraudulently) or accidentally.”
Although this usage is considered obsolete, the following mid-16th century Oxford English Dictionary definition shows that quid for quid continued to carry contagion: “One thing in exchange for or exchanged for another; an eye for an eye “. Today we use “tit for tat” mainly to mean retribution or retribution, or, as MW put it, “the equivalent received in return (as in the case of injury): retribution in kind.”
So you can still use the happy, clean expression quid for a $ 4 ruined Starbucks latte – or you can use quid in circumstances where motives might be more nefarious.