Phrase: Pull Strings
An expression in English goes; it’s not what you know; it’s who you know.
Quite often, having connections with influential people or with people who have a little bit of power enables you to pull strings.
The phrase pull strings means if you have connections, you can use that influence to get things done easier and quicker than if you were not connected.
People pull strings all the time.
Imagine a man with a son who wants to join the high school baseball team.
The father’s former schoolmate is now the manager of the baseball team.
What happens?
The father makes a phone call, and either the son is on the team or the son gets very favourable treatment during tryouts.
Oh yes, I hear some people saying that’s unfair, but guess what?
That’s the way the world works.
Someone needs something and knows someone who can get it for them.
A phone call will pull strings; before you know it, it’s done.
There are some ongoing scandals in Japan at the moment, which are good examples of what happens when people pull strings.
First, we have the Moritomo Gakuen scandal involving the Prime Minister and his wife.
Then we have the Kake Gakuen scandal, where everyone denies that strings were pulled.
Anyone who has a grain of sense at all realizes that something smells fishy about the whole thing.
I don’t believe in coincidences, do you?
So there you have it.
Humanity is based on relationships.
We all know people who can do things for us, or at least we know people who know people who can get something done for us.
All we have to do is make a phone call to this person or give a small gift to another person.
They pull strings, and the mission is accomplished.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
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On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 79.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.