Idiom
John Q. Public
Meaning
A generic individual; some hypothetical average or ordinary citizen.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Politicians often claim to represent John Q. Public.”
“John Q. Public pays his bills and hopes for a quiet life.”
“The new tax law will likely affect the wallet of the average John Q. Public.”
“The marketing team designed the new app to be simple enough for any John Q. Public to use without reading a manual.”
“The local newspaper often runs a column that shares the honest opinions of John Q. Public regarding the city's new construction projects.”
“While the elite debated abstract economic theories, the actual concerns of John Q. Public remained largely ignored by the legislative assembly.”
Examples
simple
“Politicians often claim to represent John Q. Public.”
“John Q. Public pays his bills and hopes for a quiet life.”
contextual
“The new tax law will likely affect the wallet of the average John Q. Public.”
“The marketing team designed the new app to be simple enough for any John Q. Public to use without reading a manual.”
“The local newspaper often runs a column that shares the honest opinions of John Q. Public regarding the city's new construction projects.”
complex
“While the elite debated abstract economic theories, the actual concerns of John Q. Public remained largely ignored by the legislative assembly.”
Origin
First use appears c. 1938. John Q. Public was the name of a character created by Vaughn Shoemaker, an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News from 1922 to 1952; Shoemaker introduced this character in 1922 but is believed to have added the "Q." sometime in the early 1930s.https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/22/obituaries/vaughn-shoemaker-created-john-q-public.html Compare also John Doe.
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated