chain gang, bucket brigade

[Donald M. Lance]

"Bucket brigade" is another term that could have been used.  As I recall, it was used for
a line of people who would pass along buckets of water to put out a fire.  In this
instance in Brighton, the "gang" was carrying things out of the pub.

DMLance

Lynne Murphy wrote:

> The following is from the website of the Brighton (UK) Evening Argus
> newspaper.  I call your attention to the use of "chain gang" in the last
> paragraph that I've included here.  Here, "chain gang" seems to mean a
> line of people passing things from one to another.  My UK dictionaries
> only have the US sense of chain gang (group of convicts chained together
> doing hard labor), and the Collins Concise even labels it as US
> dialectal.  Is it the case that this is a nonce use (or misuse, if you
> prefer) of this meaning, or is this meaning of _chain gang_ established?
>
> Is there another name for a line of people passing things on to each
> other (it seems to me that there is, but I can't think of it).
>
> Lynne
>
> From:  http://www.thisisbrighton.co.uk/
> Up in smoke
> Hundreds of firefighters battled to save historic buildings from
> destruction as blazes hit two shopping streets.
>
> This was the dramatic scene in Arundel High Street on Saturday afternoon
> after fire engulfed a 15th Century property.
>
> And on Friday night, drinkers fled a blazing timber-framed pub in the
> East Street pedestrian precinct, Chichester. In Arundel, more
> than 100 firefighters battled to save Spencer Swaffer Antiques when fire
> erupted in a second floor flat above the shop.
>
> Members of the public formed a chain gang to save valuable antiques as
> the flames spread. Hundreds of residents and tourists
> watched in horror as smoke started pouring from the building just after
> 1pm.
>
> Dr M Lynne Murphy
> Lecturer in Linguistics
> School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> phone +44-(0)1273-678844
> fax   +44-(0)1273-671320