I imagine the word buck meant a male dear long before it came to mean a dollar bill. were do we get that monentary usage?

hhhhmmmmmm ... I'd hate to think it comes from some woman who needed money and decided to make a buck. [blush]

OMG! I'll never be able to look in quite the same way at all the spam ads that say, "Want to make big bucks?"

The two uses of the word are related. It goes back to the days when trappers used buckskins in trade as a form of currency. "Buckskin" was later shortened to "buck" and was transferred to the money itself.

While I greatly enjoyed the innuendoes in this thread , I must admit that I anticipated none of this when I titled my original post Buck Up!

Way off topic, but how do you move the emoticons into the text? How do you make italics? Helllllp!

Asa asked :

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how do you move the emoticons into the text? How do you make italics?

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Move your cursor to where you want to insert the emoticon, then click on the one you want in the "Instant Graemlins"* box below the message box.

To italicise text click the Italics button in the "Instant UBBCode™" box, type the text you want to use in the box, then press OK.

The link at the top of the page (underneath "Post a Reply") to "faq" should help with most similar questions.

* Hey! Another diphthong!

Reviving a VERY old thread....

What about the phrase the buck stops here? How in heck does that relate to the dollar-buck?

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What about the phrase the buck stops here? How in heck does that relate to the dollar-buck?

I think it came from poker. The buck was a marker that was passed from player to player to indicate who was to put in the blind or ante.

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Reviving a VERY old thread....

Interesting, Wordnerd, because I just did the very same thing with another thread, without seeing this revival. It really is fun to read those old threads. I can see how the board has matured. We used to have threads like, "Can you think of water words?" or "What are your word pet peeves?" Now we are talking about "semiotics" and such things. There's much more analysis and fewer lists of words.

I've heard from any number of places that "pass the buck" was used in poker. Evidently a buckskin marker was used to signify who was dealing, and was passed after each hand. I'm not sure of the validity of this claim, though.

The Word Detective, speaking about the related phrase, the buck stops here states fairly categorically that it comes from poker.

So many errors by Word Detective's people!

1. They say, "'Pass the buck'" first appeared in poker jargon around 1865," and OED gives the same date. But here's a cite nine years earlier, regarding a journey. It shows that the phrase was, even then, familiar enough to pun upon.

Nothing occurs to distract us frorm our monotonous snail's pace… At last Buck Creek appears. We think how gladly we would 'pass' the Buck as at 'poker;', but we are not playing that game now …
William Addison Phillips, The conquest of Kansas, by Missouri and her allies [etc.] (1856), page 303 (emph. in orig.)

2. They say, "'Pass the buck' … was being used in the figurative 'talk to my boss' sense by 1900." No, it doesn't mean "talk to my boss". Quite often, the boss passes the buck down to a subordinate and sticks him with the decision.

3. They say, "often pocket knives with handles made of buckhorn" were used as a marker in the poker game. But I'd bet an 1850s poker players would carry and use not a pocketknife (that is, a knife whose blade folds into its handle) but a good solid knife, the non-folding kind kept in a sheath, not a pocket.

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Originally posted by Amanda:
hhhhmmmmmm ... I'd hate to think it comes from some woman who needed money and decided to make a buck. [blush]

Consider this image, from a 1949 ad.

In case the link becomes bad, I'll add the explanation from Snopes: The layout shows a sleeping native American man sprawled in an attitude of complete exhaustion in a sheet (which cost about a dollar apiece back then) stretched hammock-style between birch trees. A comely young woman flashing a wide grin is getting up from the hammock, one leg still caught in its confines. Its caption reads "A buck well spent on Springmaid Sheet."

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But I'd bet an 1850s poker players would carry and use not a pocketknife (that is, a knife whose blade folds into its handle) but a good solid knife, the non-folding kind kept in a sheath, not a pocket.

I would venture to say they'd have both! From what I've gleaned in re-enacting, there were certainly both kinds of knives in common use back then. Many saloons quickly learned that big knives and drinking don't mix well, so men, being accustomed to having their blades handy, would carry pocket knives in the towns rather than their "working" knives.

Hic - that is a very interesting ad! One reason I find it interesting is the naughty implications - where were the censors?

Another reason it is interesting (although not in an appealing way) is the racism in the ad. Referring to a Native American man as a "buck" is offensive, don't you think?

Someone suggested that the use of buck in the ad Arnie posted (on Dec. 22), might be considered offensive. I had never thought of it that way, so I prepared a reply. But, when I looked at the forum again, I couldn't find the post, so I'm replying to a question that no longer appears. Here goes:

Funny, I never thought of "buck" as offensive. It originally meant a male deer or goat, then came to be applied to other animals, then applied by transferance to man (OED 1303), and "A gay, dashing fellow; a dandy, fop, ‘fast’ man." (OED 1725) Intrestingly, the OED's first quote said a "buck" could be of either sex: "New Cant. Dict., Buck, as, A bold Buck, is sometimes used to signify a forward daring Person of either Sex."

The OED recorded the use of "buck" in 1800 to mean "A man: applied to native Indians of S. America, and to any male Indian, Negro, or Aboriginal." It doesn't record it as offensive, though some of the quotes would clearly be seen as offensive under present-day standards, but not necessarily at the time they were made.

The AHD, however, does say it's offensive when applied to a Native American or Black man:

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buck:

n.
1. a. The adult male of some animals, such as the deer, antelope, or rabbit.
b. Antelope considered as a group: a herd of buck.
2.
a. A robust or high-spirited young man.
b. A fop.
3. Offensive. A Native American or Black man.
4. An act or instance of bucking: a horse that unseated its rider on the first buck.
5.
a. Buckskin.
b. bucks Buckskin breeches or shoes.

Wikipedia records it as a slang term, but doesn't say it's offensive. What do you think?

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

The way I have heard buck used when refering to Native American and Black males has almost always been meant to offend.

I agree that today that usage would be offensive, and that ad would not be permitted.

But that's today. My copy of the 1961 MW Collegiate Dictionary defines 'buck' as 'a human man' (of any race), with no indication that it's offensive or other connotation when applied to men of particular races.