Your money or your life

Meaning

The choice that was given to the victims of highwaymen and other robbers.

Origin

'Give me your money or I will kill you' doesn't leave the victim with much of a choice, but this was the traditional greeting given by highwaymen - the robbers who preyed on travellers in English stagecoaches in 18th and 19th century.

Whether that tradition was originally one of historical record or merely one of literary imagination isn't clear. It was known in the highway robbery context in the United Kingdom by at least 1774, when it was used in a copy of the The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 44:

"A coach returning to Town from Ham Common, in which were Hastings Esq; of Knightsbridge, and his lady, was stopped by a highwayman in Kew Lane, who, thrusting a pistol into the carriage, made use of the expression, "Your money, or your life."

Jack Benny got good mileage out of the phrase when he used it as a gag that played on his 'stingy' stage persona. The gag's set-up was that a mugger approached Benny and demanded, "Your money or your life". After a long pause, the mugger repeated the demand and Benny replied, "I'm thinking it over". Spike Milligan also used the phrase to comic effect; his punch line was a typically surreal "Take my life; I'm saving for my birthday".

See also: stand and deliver.

See also: an offer you can't refuse.