学个词 “double down"

In its original context of the card game blackjack, double down describes a strategy wherein a player who is confident in their hand chooses to double their bid. The phrase is found in a book on card-playing by noted magician John Scarne in 1949. By at least the 1990s, the gambling sense of double down extended as a metaphor to a more general sense of “engaging in risky behavior.”

Double down started evolving in the 2000–10s away from “taking risks” toward an “impassioned commitment to a cause.” The verb phrase saw an extreme peak in Google trends in April 2010. In November of that year, AOL.com declared double down its “buzzword of the week,” noting that the term had been “a popular boardroom buzzword” before beginning to spread through politics, communications, and media. At this time, it seemed to be used synonymously with “to work twice as hard.”

Perhaps picking up on this, KFC introduced in 2010 its Double Down sandwich. The name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the outrageousness of such a food item. Double down has also developed special associations in the tech sector. In 2012, The Verge, notably, reported in their own examination of the phrase that doubling down had “become the go-to phrase for tech CEOs when they want to allay fears that their company is flagging,” dubbing it “the most meaningless phrase in tech.”