Idiom
who shot John
Meaning
Long and involved explanation, finger-pointing, or assignment of credit or blame.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I do not want to hear the whole who shot John about this.”
“When the project failed, the manager gave us a long who shot John instead of fixing the problem.”
“The committee meeting devolved into an exhausting who shot John, with each member desperately trying to deflect responsibility for the budget deficit.”
Examples
simple
“I do not want to hear the whole who shot John about this.”
contextual
“When the project failed, the manager gave us a long who shot John instead of fixing the problem.”
complex
“The committee meeting devolved into an exhausting who shot John, with each member desperately trying to deflect responsibility for the budget deficit.”
Origin
First attested in the 1860s as a game among students at British military academies; in later use, chiefly US.
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated