Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origin 63. The word origin today is
lame-duck. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone is described as a
lame-duck, the speaker is being critical of that
person. So they're criticizing them. They might be mocking them or making fun of
them. Of that person because he or she is no longer successful or basically he's
lost a lot of power. Nowadays, it is used with politicians who have little real
power left because he or she is at the end of their term. Okay, and will not be
returning. Other politicians or adversaries realize there is no point to
deal with him or her anymore because someone new will take their position or
their power very soon and any new deal may not even be honored by the new
person or maybe it'll be totally cancelled by them. Yeah. The new person. The
origin of this phrase actually comes from the stock market. Believe it or not.
Yes and was used to refer to investors who could not pay their debts. Yeah. There
was a time in the stock market where they allowed investors to buy stocks on
credit. So if they really ran into trouble and they bought too many stocks
and they couldn't cover them. They got wiped out and they they couldn't honor
you know what they was supposedly bought anymore. So they couldn't honor you know,
their debts and it just came down to that. So those, those investors referred
to as lame ducks. Okay. All right. Lame duck was another term often used.
Yeah. Because you know, we use we still today use bull and bear. But all three
used to be used at one time. The reason why someone with no money or
assets was called a lame duck is related to the British game of cricket. Okay. You
know, crickets a little bit like baseball. There is a batter or in, in
cricket they call him a batsman and he tries to hit the ball and maybe he could
run between it's really just like two two areas and then he could score runs
just like in baseball too. So there are a lot of similarities, but there's still
very different games. But anyway. Let's continue. So if a batsman didn't score
any runs in you know, when he was up, his score of zero was thought to resemble a
duck's egg. So it looked a little bit oval so it looked like a duck's egg. So
that's why they started calling these investors lamb ducks. Because they didn't ...
they didn't have anything anymore. They had zero left. Okay and so that's
basically it. So it's strange. That's where we get lame duck from. First it
was from the idea of the stock market and from the stock market it came from
the idea of the British game cricket. Anyway, so let's give one example here. He
can no longer get any of his policies passed from his agenda because he has
become a lame duck after losing his re-election bid. Okay. Anyway, I hope you
got it. I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.