From where does the phrase “more bang for you buck” come?
My WAG is that it is a gunpowder reference. The cheaper gunpowder is, the more you get for a dollar. Hence, “more bang for your buck.”
I remember my political science professor talking about a U.S. general or senator who said early in the Cold War that nuclear weapons give “more bang for the buck” than conventional weapons. I assumed it was this use that popularized the phrase. Now that I think about it, I realize the phrase could be much older than the atomic age.
To expand upon bibliophage’s link–
It specifically is recounted by William Safire in his New Language of Politics 1968, and he attributes it to Defense Secretary Charles Wilson in 1954 dubbing John Foster Dulles’ principle of massive retaliation as “a bigger bang for a buck.” At least, that’s the first incidence in print.
It’s been 25 years but I came across some relevant new information.
A recent episode of the podcast Lexicon Valley discusses “bang for your buck” and other “buck” words and phrases. The part about “bang for the buck” runs from about timestamps 3:00 to 11:38. They provide two citations that slightly predate Wilson’s 1954 usage. Two newspaper columnists used variations of the phrase in late December 1953: Russell Curtis Barnes writing in the Detroit News (Dec. 19) and Stewart Alsop in his syndicated column (Dec. 21). Both columns are about the Eisenhower administration’s new national security policy emphasizing tactical nuclear weapons and de-emphasizing combat troops and conventional weapons. The policy was laid out in a document called NSC 162/2 (dated October 30, 1953), which has since been declassified but does not use this colorful phrase.
The hosts of the podcast note that the phrase might have been inspired by a mostly forgotten Pepsi slogan from 1950: “more bounce to the ounce.” ETA: there is also a funk song called More Bounce to the Ounce from 1980. I can’t say I remember that one.
This timing is consistent with the term being picked up in Australian newspapers in January 1954 in reporting forthcoming US defence budget cuts: