Passing the buck... to Ewan

Where did the term "passing the buck" come from?

According to The Phrase Finder:

Poker became very popular in America during the second half of the 19th century. Players were highly suspicious of cheating or any form of bias and there's considerable folklore depicting gunslingers in shoot-outs based on accusations of dirty dealing. In order to avoid unfairness the deal changed hands during sessions. The person who was next in line to deal would be given a marker. This was often a knife, and knives often had handles made of buck's horn - hence the marker becoming known as a buck. When the dealer's turn was done he 'passed the buck'.

Silver dollars were later used as markers and this is probably the origin of the use of buck as a slang term for dollar.

I thought of this term today as I announced Ewan Spence as TPN's first "channel manager". Obviously as TPN continues to grow, there is going to be a need for me to delegate some of my daily responsibilities to others in the team. One concept we've been thinking about for some time is that of "channel managers". The role of a channel manager will be to assist me in moderating the shows for that channel, as well as assist in recruiting new talent and closing advertising deals .

As I'm going to be offline for a couple of days, I thought now was a good time to take that step and I'd like to thank Ewan Spence for offering to take on the role of Music Channel Manager. As those of you that have been following us for a while will already know, Ewan's been one of the keys to TPN's success. He was one of our original hosts back in Feb 2005 and has hosted or co-hosted shows such as the Mobiles Show, Rock Show, Movie Show, Edinburgh Fringe Show (for which he was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA in 2005), the TechConf Show and, most recently, our current number one rating show, the PSP Show. He has also been instrumental in recruiting new talent to TPN such as Mark Hunter and the Skiffs, as well as helping us get our positioning in iTunes sorted out.

So please join me in congratulating Ewan on his new role in TPN!

Okay, I'm off to hospital to let them stick knives in my eye again and I'll be offline for a few days. Wish me luck!

 

Comments

[Bob M]

Good luck.