Slight detour (pardon me) but where did the phrase "throwing them under the bus" come from?

[SoonerPride]

I only hear it about 150,000 times a freaking day. God, I am so sick of that lame-ass line.

It is tired and needs to be thrown under the bus itself.

Can't we get some new and more exciting imagery?

[shraby]

1. How about "had the rungs taken off his/her ladder"?

[DefenseLawyer]

2. Thrown under the bus has definitely jumped the shark n/t

[SoonerPride]

7. And speaking of "jumping the shark"

Has that phrase itself jumped the shark?

:)

[DefenseLawyer]

8. One would hope n/t

[babylonsister]

3. Great question. I want to know also. Or alternatives to that tired phrase. nt

[acrosstheuniverse]

4. Soundbites and snippets of an angry preacher...

are the only things that matter to the American people these days. Their attention spans are so tiny that while a candidate is making a speech the newscasters have to interrupt them in the middle of it and repeat snippets of what they said and then go to commercial. BTW the "throwing grandma under the bus" line originated with Karl Rove on Faux News talking to Bill (I don't wanna go on a lynching party on Michelle Obama unless....) O Reily

[XemaSab]

5. Folk etymology would suggest that someone is ON the bus

then suddenly they're being run over by it, but the real origins of the phrase? I couldn't tell ya. :shrug:

[opihimoimoi]

6. Thrown under the bus, I cannot recall when..or who...but it started only in recent times

within 2 years or so....maybe less....

Better /cleaner than....All used up and discarded; has a stench, must go; expedient to sacrifice; etc

[Muttocracy]

9. I agree. What happened to "betrayed" or "disowned" ? nt

[Muttocracy]

10. here's an article about it!

I googled

origin phrase throw under bus

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/throw_someone_under_the_bus/

[Emit]

11. Here's an attempt at finding the origin

http://www.word-detective.com/2008/02/12/under-the-bus-to-throw/

~snip~

The earliest solid example of “throw under the bus” found in print so far is from 1991, although a 1984 quote from rock star Cyndi Lauper where she uses the phrase “under the bus” (without “throw”) may or may not count as a sighting. Incidentally, by far the best compilation of citations for the phrase can be found, as usual, at Grant Barrett’s Double-Tongued Dictionary website (www.doubletongued.org).

The exact origin of “thrown under the bus” is, unfortunately, a mystery. Slang expert Paul Dickson, quoted by William Safire in his New York Times magazine column, traces it to sports, specifically the standard announcement by managers trying to get the players to board the team bus: “Bus leaving. Be on it or under it.” The phrase does seem to be popular in sports circles, but few of the citations I have seen from sports publications carry the same overtones of casual, callous betrayal that one finds in non-sporting uses.

Consequently, I have my own theory. I don’t think the “bus” was ever the team bus. As someone who spent a lot of time standing on Manhattan street corners and narrowly avoided being expunged by speeding city buses on several occasions, to me the phrase conjures up the classic urban nightmare of being pushed in front of a bus. As a way to quickly and irreversibly get rid of someone, “throwing” them under a bus in this sense would be the ideal solution and would satisfy the connotations of sudden, cold brutality the phrase usually carries. So I suspect that the phrase has urban origins, and migrated into sports world via players from big cities.

[SoonerPride]

13. Thank you

Now can we retire it?

[Wickerman]

12. Urban Dictionary sez

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=under+the+bus

under the bus



To cast a person in an unfavorable light with others; to take action or make statements intended to put another person at a disadvantage.

Origin: A Boston radio station manager coined the term circa 1987-88 when canceling a radio network's services on his music-oriented FM station, stating that he was going to put the network "under the bus." The term was picked up by staff members to describe conduct in which one person would try to gain an advantage in company politics by speaking ill of, or doing something to reflect disfavorably on, another. In this context, it generally meant something that was a combination of sneaky, subtle and vicious. The phrase crept into on-air talk. In time, the radio station's owner acquired a sports-oriented station whose employees picked up the phrase and eventually began using it on highly-rated programs.

Joe really threw Sally under the bus in the meeting today. She wasn't there and he said the company would have won the Simpson account if Sally hadn't gotten drunk at the lunch meeting.