By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing - I find a common confusion in the use of the phrase “free gift.” Someone gives a free gift, properly speaking, if he was not bound to give it. No legal constraint or moral obligation or physical coercion dictated the gift. The giver gave it freely, perhaps because it struck him as good, or he felt pity. But people get confused and think that a “free gift” means that the recipient is not bound through receiving it. All gifts bind, however. There is no such thing as a gift with “no strings attached.”