[Ads-l] speaking of deflate-gate, PSI Boston, ballghazi,...

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 12:48 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> Is there anything new on "throw under the bus"?
[...]
> The wiki entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_under_the_bus) quotes
> Geoff Nunberg on the plethora of uses of the phrase during the 2008
> primary campaign and cites Grant's Double-Tongued Dictionary for a 1991
> cite.  Are there any new antedates or theories on who came up with what
> is, after all, a remarkably vivid and specific metaphor?

In a 2011 thread, Garson supplied a 1985 cite for "shove under the
bus" with the relevant meaning, in an article by the British political
analyst Dennis Kavanagh:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110384.html
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-June/110398.html

I haven't seen anything earlier than 1991 for "throw under the bus,"
as given on Double-Tongued:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070505063632/http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/throw_someone_under_the_bus/

(Grant brackets the "on the bus"/"under the bus" quote from David
Remnick's 1984 Washington Post article about Cyndi Lauper, often
misattributed to Lauper herself. I don't really think it's relevant to
the scapegoating usage, though.)

--bgz

-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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