Reader's question:  

I believe we can just work it together, split everything right down the middle.

Could you explain "right down the middle"?

My comments:

If you split something with someone, you share it with them. You share, say, an apple with a friend by cutting the apple in the middle, thus splitting the apple into two halves. And if you're really nifty with the job, you may split the apple right down the middle and exactly cut it by half.

Hence, by extension, if you split a business venture with someone, you work with them by sharing the profit. By saying that you want to "split everything right down the middle", you're willing to get half of the profits and let your partner get the other half.

In other words, you want to split the profits by 50-50 – "right down the middle".

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網(wǎng)立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內容。

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.