"Drive a hard bargain" and "cutting edge"

Posted by Smokey Stover on January 11, 2006

In Reply to: "Drive a hard bargain" and "cutting edge" posted by Michelle on January 11, 2006

: What is the exact meaning and origin of the idioms "Drive a hard bargain" and "cutting edge"

To drive a hard bargain is to make deals as little favorable to the other guy as possible, as favorable to himself as he can make it and still get a deal. A hard bargain is one in which you give up more than you wanted, get less than you wanted. You accept a hard bargain because you're desperate, because you have mp choice bu to accept it.

On the cutting edge. Hasn't this metaphor been covered in the Archives? Try googling it. It means being right there where new things, new techniques, are being discovered and tried. The cutting edge is the business edge, as opposed to the blunt edge, of, say, a knife, and is cutting through the old right into the new. SS