In fact, “lame duck” as a person did not refer to a politician as first. At first, the lame duck was a stock broker. Well, Americans have their own theories and rightfully so as they generally don’t boast that much of a sense of history of other countries (“In case you may have wondered,” said Peter Jennings on ABC-TV… “in this country the phrase lame duck appears to derive at the time of the Civil War from duck hunting. A wounded duck, or a lame duck, isn't very effective either as a duck or a hunting trophy” - Falling in Love With Luv, William Safire, February 14, 1988, New York Times), but the Oxford English Dictionary points its origin to the London stock market in the eighteenth century when bulls, bears and lame ducks roamed the floors. Respectively “bulls” referred to bullish, bold and confident brokers, bears to those bearish folks who are less aggressive – today, we still talk about bull markets (with stocks rising and trading active) and bear markets (falling and sluggish). The lame ducks, on the other hand, referred to those who have defaulted on their debts (presumably having accumulated nothing else) and were therefore rendered powerless as brokers.
Since, however, lame duck the broker has long faded from memory. Taking their place is lame duck the politician, and primarily American, thanks in part to the bullish United States as democratic machine. It is, as a matter of fact, the very democratic electoral process that gave rise to such terms as “lame duck president”, “lame duck Senate”, “lame duck House”, all pointing to the fact that their terms in office are about to end and they’re therefore rendered lame (ineffective).
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