My very very longtime German friend (now living in Tokyo) says “ONE word for Unterdenautobusschmeissen? Impossible!”
Uh…Treppenwitz is sadly English. He has watched these ideas develop with admiration; but he’s keeping his mouth firmly shut on this one.
j
Then we will have to call @EinsteinsHund to lend us hand!
Hey, I already made my suggestion in the other thread before we were told to cut the hijack: Unterdenbusschmeissopfer.
ETA: though I wasn’t quite satisfied with this word. There has to be some way to work in “Bauernopfer”, because the people Trump threw under the bus were mostly that, pawns in his game (to allude to a Dylan song).
Great work, as I said, guys. I’ll be incautious here and offer a thought. Is part of the original American expression the idea that everyone - the “team” - is on the bus, and then one poor sap is yanked from the team and thrown under the bus? I presume so.
If so, is there a way to incorporate this sense of “excommunication” (for want of a better word) into a sparkly new German expression?
j
I recall reading a very old SciFi story which, ISTM, contained the first reference to what we now call a cellphone. The term used in that story for the phone is handphone.
Exkobussieren? Schubskommubussieren? Schubsexkommubussieren? Schubskommuexbussieren?
I speak a little German. So I’ll just nod and smile. Nervously.
j
He’d have a genuine basis for a lawsuit – against himself. He could represent both sides!
as i understand it, and checked with a coworker about it… the bus is coming at you, and you fling someone to the bus to be able to avoid the bus.
using a trump example, the justice department is coming at him for the documents at mar a lago. he has at various times thrown various people at the department to buy him time or to divert the department. the movers packed the boxes, the white house aides packed the boxes, it was chaotic, i don’t know who did what, my lawyers dealt with it. the doj bus keeps getting closer and closer.
now that i am thinking about it… it could be “bus sacrifice” or “speed bump” related. cannon fodder?
He gets his cue from Jake Blues.
I still like my “Kuhfängerfutter” (cow-catcher-fodder). To mine American ears, it has a poetic sound to it.
The Germans already have another great word, suitable for the former President and some, if not all, of his adoring followers: Word of the Week: Backpfeifengesicht – @GermanyinUSA.
That’s a perfectly cromulent word for Trump, but I prefer Hackfresse. It has much more oomph.
I think the first time I remember hearing about someone being thrown under the bus was during Watergate.
One of Nixon’s guys, I don’t remember which (Colson, Liddy? one of those) was caught on tape saying he would throw his grandmother under a bus if that’s what it took to get Nixon re-elected.
Not quite.
It was Charles Colson, but he said that he would “walk over my own grandmother” to ensure the reelection of Tricky Dick.
That’s according to the Washington Post.
I wonder whether his granny was still alive when he said that. Walk over a grave is no big deal in my book. And if she was, what he got for Christmas from her.
Thanks.
I guess the memory is the second thing to go. If I could only remember what the first was …
Well, I will confess that I looked it up because I thought you got the quote right, but I didn’t think it was either Colson or Liddy.
So my memory is also on the way out.
Poor ol’ Kevin: