"Throw the Bums Out" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Seems to have started as a chant by audiences who disapproved of
boxing/wrestling matches, from the 1920s onward, then moved to baseball
(in reference to both "Dem Bums" and umpires) before it moved to
politics.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:25 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Throw the Bums Out"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
---------------
> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "Throw the Bums Out"
>
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> --------
>
> Someone asked me today about the origin of the phrase "throw the bums
> out."  This is an important political expression, but in a few minutes
> of research I don't see it in The Yale Book of Quotations or the OED
or
> Safire's Political Dictionary.  I haven't yet run it through the
> databases.  Is anyone able to supply any information about early uses?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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