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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 188. The idiom today is to cook

  • the books. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone is cooking the

  • books, he or she is falsifying financial records. All right. So if they falsify them, they

  • put down fake numbers or they fudge the numbers. As like what we might say. So

  • they're falsifying the records. They're cooking the books. Let's continue. The

  • origin of this phrase comes from the idea that 'cook' at one time, you know used

  • to be in the past at one time used to mean to transform something. Which makes

  • more sense. Like you're transforming the numbers to make them look like something

  • they are really not. So that's where it came from to cook the books other than that

  • you know people used to wonder. Well , why do they say cook the books ? I mean are

  • they, they're not actually putting it into boiling water. Why, why cook the

  • books ? Okay. Anyway, let's continue here. Let's look at the first example. That

  • company cooked its books. So they could have a positive financial quarterly

  • report in order to help the stock price to rise. Yes. Some, sometimes they might do

  • this. You know, they're not supposed to do it. Maybe they can get away with doing it.

  • Maybe not. Maybe they may get caught. But sometimes we say they might cook the

  • books or maybe they have two sets of books. The real books and the fake books.

  • Okay. Anyway, let's look at number two. Don't believe these GDP numbers. The

  • government is cooking the books. Yes sometimes you hear somebody say that. If

  • they're really questionable about the government's numbers, especially when a

  • lot of numbers don't seem to match or make sense. They say well , they must just

  • be cooking the books. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you

  • for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 188. The idiom today is to cook

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