Holiday Sale! Get an annual membership for 20% off!

Why do we say "Never Mix Business With Pleasure"?

Well-Known Expressions

Never Mix Business With Pleasure

Meaning:

Keep your work separate from your private life; don’t do business with friends.

Background:

This expression is believed to trace back to at least the early 1900s, and presumably was well in use by 1934 as F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a play on it in Tender is the Night:

“She was so damn brave,” said Dick. “And it took her so long.” Franz shook his head sympathetically and Dick got himself together. “Excuse me for interrupting you.”
“This is just a change—the situation is a father’s problem with his son—the father can’t get the son up here. He wants somebody to come down there.”
“What is it? Alcoholism? Homosexuality? When you say Lausanne—”
“A little of everything.”
“I’ll go down. Is there any money in it?”
“Quite a lot, I’d say. Count on staying two or three days, and get the boy up here if he needs to be watched. In any case take your time, take your ease; combine business with pleasure.”

More expressions and their source

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket
    The Avian Hourglass
    by Lindsey Drager
    It would be easy to describe The Avian Hourglass as "haunting" or even "dystopian," but neither of ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.