you break it, you buy it en · X
Etymology
From the Pottery Barn rule – a policy by which a retail store may hold a customer responsible for damage done to products or merchandise on display –, usually phrased in this manner.
Meanings
-
(figuratively) If you damage, harm or destroy something, you are responsible for repairing it or accepting the consequences.
Diplomats need to make it clear that we completely eschew the "you break it, you buy it” rule. In the future, we'll break it if others force us to.
2011, Anna Simmons, Joe McGraw, Duane Lauchengco, The Sovereignty Solution: A Common Sense Approach to Global Security, page 140:In perhaps history's greatest instance of “you break it, you buy it,” the wartime imperial government bought millions of gallons of unused vodka.
2010, Mark Lawrence Schrad, The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions,, page 131:
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, buy.