Reader question: "There's an English saying for‘推诿’, ‘passing the buck'or‘passing the puck'?"
My comments:
The buck is not to be mistaken with the puck.
The puck is the ice hockey puck, a round disk made of rubber serving as hockey's game "ball". Players pass the puck to each other on an ice rink till someone is in a scoring position and shoots for goal.
Passing the puck around is good. It may lead to an assist, the final pass that helps a teammate to score.
Passing the buck, on the other hand, is no assist to no one. If you pass the buck, you’re shirking your responsibilities and you are shifting the blame to others. That, in the long run, helps none, not even your self.
Passing the buck came from the card game. In poker, players take turns to deal the next hand. A marker, known as the buck, is placed in front of the dealer till he moves the marker to the next dealer, thus shifting the chore to the other player. In some stories, the marker used in the game of poker in the early days in America is said to be a knife with a handle made of buck’s horn, hence the term.
This, from a story on phrase origins from www.phrases.org.uk:
Poker became very popular in America during the second half of the 19th century. Players were highly suspicious of cheating or any form of bias and there's considerable folklore depicting gunslingers in shoot-outs based on accusations of dirty dealing. In order to avoid unfairness the deal changed hands during sessions. The person who was next in line to deal would be given a marker. This was often a knife, and knives often had handles made of buck's horn – hence the marker becoming known as a buck. When the dealer’s turn was done he 'passed the buck'.
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