After hearing both sides, the judge decided that Jones must pay his wife the child support she was supposed to get and said he would have to go to jail if he didn't ante up.

Could you explain “ante up”?

My comments:

“Ante up” simply means “pay up”. It is originally a betting term, meaning the player who loses a bet has to pay up the money he owes. Two similar phrases are “up the ante” or “raise the ante”, meaning for the player to increase the stake or bet – taking a greater risk for more money back.

If he/she wins.

In the above example, the judge asks Jones to pay the full amount of the money he owes to his wife in child support. Sounds like another case of a husband being punished for making whoopee.

Making whoopee? Ah well, that’s for another day.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

Zhang Xin 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.