Bang for the Buck

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mark Pittman.

I’m from Maine, but I’m calling from Greenville, South Carolina.

I heard something really weird on an NPR podcast, and I couldn’t find the answer on your way with words website.

Okay.

What’d you hear?

I was listening to a news podcast about the New START treaty and how talking about the nuclear weapons program and all. And one of the researchers said, that’s where we get, it’s the nuclear weapons program where we get the term, more bang for your buck. The host didn’t seem to know that. The other reporter didn’t seem to know that. And I had that same sort of joy of discovery that I have listening to Away With The Words. I was like, oh, wow, that’s where it comes from. But it didn’t really sit true. And then even more so since I couldn’t find it on your website.

Okay. Yeah. Bang for your buck. So to frame that differently, can we tell you more about bang for your buck and the U.S. nuclear program?

Yeah. Would that give more bang for the buck for this call?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And sometimes it’s bang for a buck or bang for the buck or other constructions, but generally bang’s in there and buck is in there.

It is somewhat associated in its first print appearances with the U.S. nuclear program, but it’s more like it came from the U.S. military in general.

Post-World War II, the term was floating around Washington, and then it was picked up by the press.

And so we see it in two key articles in the news media in December of 1953, first in the New York Times and then in the newspaper column by Washington insider Stuart Alsop, A-L-S-O-P.

And both of these pieces were talking about this kind of post-war change happening across the U.S. military, and they called it the new look U.S. military.

And it involved things like substantial troop cuts, an increased reliance on the Air Force, and a commitment to nuclear weapons.

The Air Force and the nuclear weapons kind of went together because that’s how they were thinking about delivering these weapons to the enemy so that need arise.

And so in the first article, it’s just mentioned once, but Stuart Alsop used this expression, bang for a buck or bang for the buck, numerous times in this one article.

And that article, because it was a syndicated column, was widely reprinted, and he had a lot of influence, and people outside the Beltway picked it up.

And he attributed just the concept of bigger bang for a buck to military plans by Admiral Arthur Radford.

And so we don’t know for sure that Radford is the one who coined it, but certainly this idea of getting more for your money, which is what it means, did come out of the U.S. military and did involve, among other things, more reliance on atomic weapons or nuclear weapons.

My goodness. So it’s really a new phrase.

Yeah, it’s new. Yeah, 1950s.

Although the different parts of it, bang and buck, both have a much longer history.

Buck meaning dollar, possibly going back to the use of buckskins as a kind of a barter item in the frontier days.

And bang actually, meaning a hammering or a beating, goes back to Old Norse.

So it’s a very old word in English.

And being used as an onomatopoeia for the sound of an explosion, too, is also very old.

Any kind of weapons discharge, but often, you know, of course, gunpowder discharge, or you could use bang to represent that.

Or even just the falling of a chair on the floor could be a bang.

Wow.

Well, that’s fascinating.

I’m really glad the person was accurate.

It’s amazing how one person can also have such impact, and that’s in the kiddo column, to add a whole new phrase.

Yeah. And Mark, you know, the thing about that interface is that interface between the Washington insiders in the press and the huge structure and bureaucracy of the U.S. government and the U.S. military.

You often see that, that these terms that have floated around for quite a while inside the bureaucracy of governments and military leave those niches through the press.

Maybe less common now since the press seems to be fracturing and declining, but it used to be really common that that’s how they would leave.

And it’s possible that term floated around ever since nuclear weapons were an option during the Truman era.

Wow. Well, I was hoping it wasn’t related to nuclear bombs and weapons, but I’m glad to know where it comes from. That’s great.

Well, Mark, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you both for making language so fun to learn about. I’m really glad my wife pointed me to you guys years ago.

Our pleasure. We appreciate it.

Excellent.

Take care now.

Bye now.

Bye-bye.

If you call us to talk about language, you’re sure to get bang for your buck, 877-929-9673.