Origins of Expression - Pass the Buck, and why we call a dollar bill a Buck.
So this one isn't about the "buck" like the dollar bill as I often thought it was buck means something a little different here.
Of course this expression is used when you are trying to pass the responsibility onto someone else, but what is the buck really.
I already said it's not like the dollar bill, but while we're here I may as well also tell you why we call a dollar bill a buck. It's believed to come from the days of the fur traders, when a 'buck skin' was actually used as a medium of exchange. So things were often said to be worth 2 buck, or 20 buck, of course meaning 2 or 20 deer hides.
Anyways back to the expression at hand, you are now on the track thinking a buck has something to do with a deer, but in this case it's about a buck horn knife.
Makes perfect sense now right, it's all about passing a buck horn knife? But why was the knife being passed and why did it come with a certain responsibility?
Well you see a knife was always carried in days of the frontier and it was used to indicate who the dealer was a card table. As the dealer moved around the table so did the 'buck'. Therefore when you were the dealer you were responsibly for the cards everyone received and the outcome of the hand. I'm quite sure card games were pretty serious.
I feel like cards were likely way more popular and serious back in the day. In fact a lot of old expressions actually originated at the card table as you may learn along the way if you continue to follow my weekly series.
Wow the meaning has certainly changed since then !! I will try to casually drop that into a conversation, it might even make me look half intelligent haha. Looks like you got a Damascus blade knife like silvernova's. Great post.
Very interesting. You're building a godd collection of these sayings. Nice to read the meanings or origins of these sayings😀.
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Very jolly way you put that together.
Nice, I love learning where expressions came from! This is a good one
Awesome as they say you learn something new every day. I never heard this before even though I also love knives.
Very interesting and I never knew this. I bet we'd play a lot more card days if we lost access to reliable electricity.