is "throw Person X under the bus" totally unknown outside of sports journalism?

Hell, I didn't even know it was common in sports journalism. Are we talking offering someone up to be "killed" as a distraction from your own sins? Or just abandoning someone?

I had several -ski teachers. They all taught social studies.

I, too, was thinking literal bus, and for a second, baseball was interesting.

Oh well.

What's in the tea, that stimulates the hippie woowoo (love this!) or hormone stimulation, Plei?

The usual mix of galactogues:

Sweet fennel seed, anise seed, coriander seed, spearmint leaf, lemongrass leaf, lemon verbena leaf, althea root, blessed thistle herb, and fenugreek seed.

(Oatmeal is also considered a galactogue.)

If I'd said, "attempted to throw Tejada to the wolves," would you all have thought there was really a pack of hungry wolves standing around in suburban Baltimore?

No. But the teams do ride a bus, and nobody knows what is up with Palmiero. You see, I believed him when he testified.

And prior to his positive test, I would have told you that since he had been under so much suspicion, that even if he hadn't always been clean in the past, he'd have been clean at the time of his screening which turned up positive, because he had to have known it was coming, random or no.

Okay, is "throw Person X under the bus" totally unknown outside of sports journalism?

no, I've heard it before. to me, it has a slightly different connotation than wolves. Throw someone under a bus says that you are trying to deflect attention from getting busted by pointing out someone else's issue. throw to the wolves just means needlessly placing blame, not so much for your own gain.

So, someone thrown under a bus can also be thrown to the worlves, but not vice versa. Of course, I'm queen of semantics, so most other people don't care :)

Although the expression probably began in the specific sense in which I used it -- offer up a sacrifical victim in your own stead --, it has been generalized to mean "wash your hands of so-and-so, usually for not a good enough reason."

Any time you call somebody a "clubhouse cancer" -- another sports term, meaning, a guy who is a jerk -- you've basically thrown him under the bus. Not because you think the guy's a jerk, but because "clubhouse cancer" is so total and damning an epithet to use that it must not be true, unless the guy in question eats the babies of his teammates.

delurk

ita, you probably already know about this 7th annual capoeira festival but just in case.

Also the Serenity Fan Fest and the movie got a plug on the ABC morning news wheee!

EtA: We use "throw under the bus" all time at work - usually in the "gee, didn't mean to throw you under the bus but I thought the boss already knew you weren't really sick but playing golf" sort of way.

relurk

Okay, is "throw Person X under the bus" totally unknown outside of sports journalism?

I've never heard of it. Wolves, yes--bus, no.

blessed thistle herb

You can't have hippee woowoo without it.

Although the expression probably began in the specific sense in which I used it -- offer up a sacrifical victim in your own stead --, it has been generalized to mean "wash your hands of so-and-so, usually for not a good enough reason."

How does throwing someone under a bus work as a scapegoat/distraction? In fact, I'd thought throwing someone to the wolves was a "so they won't eat me" gesture, opposite to Vortex's read.