["punt" - Word of the Day from the OED]

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> *verb PUNT*
>
> This seems to be the meaning I want to expand upon a bit.
>>
>>     *4.* /N. Amer. colloq./
>>
>>     *a.* /intr./ To give up, back out; to defer or avoid taking action
> or responsibility, to 'pass the buck'.
>>  *1966* /Chicago Tribune/ 10 Nov. (North Neighborhood News section) 3A
> 1/4 I've never been a fashion commentator before so I'll punt. *1972*
> /N.Y. Times/ 16 Apr. 42/3 When Jerry saw that he was not going to run
> things, he punted. *1982* /Christian Sci. Monitor/ (Nexis) 12 Aug., The
> board doesn't really seem to know how to handle the de-icing problem and
> has punted on a major issue that could have strong bearing on protecting
> passengers next winter. *2002* /Yahoo! Internet Life/ Feb. 100/2
> Sometimes it's easier to punt and assign the whole damn problem to a
> computer.
>>
>>     *b.* /trans./ To avoid, defer, or give up on. Also: to pass
> responsibility for (something) /to/.
>>  *1969* /Cook County/ (Illinois) /Herald/ 21 May 2/6 So the board
> decided to punt the matter over to Dist. 54. *1972* /Odessa/ (Texas)
> /Amer./ 10 Sept. 16/3 What is your favorite football play?.. I think
> I'll punt that question. *1983* G. STEELE et al. /Hacker's Dict./ 106
> Let's punt the movie tonight. *2005* L. LEFF /Buried by Times/ viii. 258
> A divided State Department punted the issue to Treasury.
>
> What seems to be missing here is the combination "punt on", as in "I
> think, I'll punt on that!", meaning "I will skip that." (similar to 4b
> above)

I think this is actually covered by sense 4a. See the 1982 cite: "The
board ... has punted on a major issue." But it might be worth noting
explicitly in 4a, with earlier cites for "punt on (a question, issue,
etc.)" as you've provided.

> Ignoring a handful of suspiciously meta-tagged items, the common use
> appears to date from at least 1993 forward, although some go back to
> 1977 (not sure of dates, but the usage is the same). In particular, an
> oddly large number of entries appear to come from transcripts of US
> congressional committee hearings (including a number of possibly
> mistagged items):

Here are a couple of (apparently) earlier cites, again from hearing
transcripts on Google Books:

---
I will make my remarks relatively brief, then answering any questions,
but reserving the right to punt on certain questions because there may
be some to which the Republican State Central Committee, as such, does
not have a position or which I may simply not be able to answer.
(Voter registration: transcript : hearing held September 24, 1973, San
Francisco, California. Assembly Interim Committee on Elections and
Reapportionment)
http://books.google.com/books?id=rEE-AAAAIAAJ (p. 3)
---
The brief punted on the issue of whether lay groups have the right to
contract with physicians for the delivery of health care.
(Competition in the health services market: hearings before the
Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Committee on the
Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, second
session. U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1974)
http://books.google.com/books?id=wXosAAAAMAAJ (p. 275)
---

--Ben Zimmer

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