the buck stops here
the buck stops here
Variants
- the buck stops with
- the buck ends with
Meaning
- The responsibility for a situation or a problem with somebody.
- The saying “The buck stops here” is a commitment that responsibility will not be passed on to anyone else.
- It is used to show that a person is fully responsible for a certain action and will be fully answerable to the outcomes without passing down the responsibilities to a different person.
- Used to express one’s willingness to entirely face the consequences of a particular decision or outcome.
Example Sentences
- One does not need to blame anybody else for corruption in the republic of India; the buck stops with the leaders of the government of the world’s biggest democratic nation.
- My sister was reluctant to lend me her new Porsche. But she did when I promised that the buck ends with me.
- When you are in a position of power, the buck stops with you.
- We cannot keep on blaming the police department for the risen crime rates; the buck stops with me as a citizen.
- Given the hospital policy, they couldn’t operate on my friend without his consent or that of his immediate family members. Not even after I suggested that the buck stops here.
- President Truman famously proclaimed, “The buck stops here,” an explicit declaration that he would take ultimate responsibility for tough decisions.
Origin
The idiom “the buck stops here” was derived from a slang saying “pass the buck“, which is passing a role to another person. It became popular in 1959 as U.S President Harry S. Truman frequently used the phrase and had a sign on his Oval Office desk. The sign was a gift from a prison warden who was also a poker player.
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