We bought a new lawnmower a while back. After describing our needs to the Home Depot salesman, Katie and I asked him what it would cost us. He replied, “Well, it depends on how much you want to invest.” Katie and I were both taken aback by that answer. One of us stammered something like, “Well, I don’t want to think of it as an investment at all. We just need the cheapest lawnmower that meets the needs we described.”
Today, I read this Ask Metafilter comment. Now I realize that the salesman was probably just misusing ‘invest’ to mean ‘spend.’ I had never heard that before.

Categories: Intellectual