Volume XXXIII

I. Riding Shotgun🔫

In the lawless days of the American West, stagecoaches didn’t travel alone. Alongside the driver sat a guard armed with a double-barreled shotgun, ready to protect passengers and gold shipments from bandits.

That guard’s seat became known as “riding shotgun.”

The valuables kids nowadays are after are the aux cord and control of the A/C, but don’t be fooled — riding “shotgun” still remains an integral role in any successful road trip.

II. On a Dime🪙

The dime is our smallest coin — light, forgettable, something you might flick across a bar.

But in the 1920s, car companies found value in it, boasting their machines could “stop on a dime” (brake instantly) and “turn on a dime” (turn with precision). The Brits, however, point to 1880s slang about “turning on a sixpence,” to describe a horse that could pivot in tight spaces.

Whatever the exact origin, sportswriters soon ran with the imagery: a shortstop turning a double play, a midfielder dodging a tackle, a point guard pulling up for a jumper — all within the width of ten cents.

Today it’s shorthand for doing something quickly or with control. Just don’t mix it up with the common hoops vernacular “dropping a dime.” That’s for another edition.

III. Wild Goose Chase🪿

In Elizabethan England, a “wild goose chase” was a type of horse race where one rider set off unpredictably and the rest had to follow at fixed distances, like geese flying in that loose, V-formation.

Because it was erratic and hard to follow, the phrase soon came to mean any pursuit that was confusing, aimless, or nearly impossible to finish.

Shakespeare cemented it in Romeo & Juliet, giving the idiom its staying power long after the horses stopped running.

Keep on sending on. Forward to a friend.