Huge contribution, enormous payback

The idiomatic saying "word of mouth" according to the internet, dated all the way to the year 1533 although the phrase itself was coined for modern usage by mathematician and statistician George Silverman.

- Aven Piramide

While this is the more popularly accepted etymology of the phrase, there is also an Oxford English Dictionary record which states that the earliest evidence for word of mouth is from around 1456, in the writing of Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester and religious author.

The opening line of the decision penned by Justice Corazon Agrava of the Rolando Dalman-Benigno Aquino double murder case used the word scuttlebutt. As she explained, the word scuttlebutt was close in meaning to "word of mouth" for it somehow projected what the administration of then President Ferdinand E. Marcos wanted the people to believe.