An unsettling realization

[willendorf5761]

I've been using the phrase "throw ____ under the bus" an awful lot lately.  I need to stop doing that.  And where did that expression even come from? 

Comments

[rednekkid]

Cyndi Lauper?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/124292

(OK, probably not. But wow if so...)

[willendorf5761]

So if I can't manage to stop saying it, I can at least add "As Cyndi Lauper would so eloquently put it."

[eeminy]

Or you could adopt the "Top Chef" variant -- they had one contestant a year or two ago who felt like one of his competitors had sold him out in the judging panel, and he kept describing it as, "you threw me over the bus!"

[willendorf5761]

Ha! That reminds me of a conversation I overheard in the elevator at work a while back. Someone said, "Well, you know, he isn't the sharpest spoon in the drawer." We say that all the time now.

[alexisyael]

"Throw me under a bus?" or throw someone else? I don't know that I've heard that expression except with "me" used -- in which case, I think it's just another way to say "shoot me now."

[willendorf5761]

It's used in political commentary -- and also in sports, apparently -- to mean selling someone out. As in "Obama is totally going to throw the gay community under the bus. He's already backtracking on Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[alexisyael]

Yeah, after I commented I read the comment before mine and clicked the link... I really am SO out of the loop! D'oh.