Skin in the Game

[Baker, John]

I took it back to 1991 last year, see http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0704C&L=ADS-L&P=R4064&I=-3.  It seems to come from business, with the implication that the actor is putting his own hide at risk.  Here's an example from the New York Times, 12/23/1987 (via Westlaw):
 
 
"As much as I.B.M.'s planning is defensive as it is offensive, they had a lot of interest in preventing Steve Chen's technology from falling into foreign hands," said Jeffrey Canin, an analyst with Hambrecht & Quist. Although I.B.M. has research projects in parallel processing under way at several universities and company sites, today's agreement is "putting a little more I.B.M. skin in the game, a commitment of technology, funding and personnel," he added.
 
 
 
John Baker
 

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Douglas G. Wilson
Sent: Wed 9/3/2008 10:54 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Skin in the Game



This was discussed a little on this list about a year ago. The 1992 Ross
Perot quote was mentioned. Google News Archive search turns up a few
instances dated from the late 1980's but the links are all useless (to
me) so I can't verify.

It seems that "a little skin" here = "a small stake". Maybe the basic
idea is that if one won't risk his life/ass/fortune he might still risk
a little bit of his 'skin'.  The superficial 'feel' of the expression
(to me) is that of pseudo-good-old-boy quasi-machismo (but maybe I'm FOS
again).

-- Doug Wilson

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