Fall Guy

Fall guy is a colloquial phrase that refers to a person to whom blame is deliberately and falsely attributed in order to deflect blame from another party.

The origin of the term "fall guy" is unknown and contentious. Many sources place its origin in the early 20th century, while some claim an earlier origin. In April 2007, William Safire promoted a search to unearth its origins.

The most likely origin of "fall guy" is a derivation of the slang 'fall' which means to be arrested, so the fall guy is generally the one who is arrested. However, four slightly different usages for "fall guy" survive and their origins are probably different. These usages are:

The phrase may have multiple, separate origins. Criminal usage goes back to the original sense of "felon" (derived from fallen, morally).

Various sources attribute the origin of fall guy to Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. This has been largely discredited.

One popular myth is that the word's origin dates to the 1920s, during the administration of U.S. President Warren G. Harding (1921–1923), when Albert B. Fall, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico who served as Secretary of the Interior during Harding's years in office, became notorious for his involvement in the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal. Though this is a popular story, references to 'fall guy' and Albert Fall have not been found. The book The Tempest Over Teapot Dome contains no references to "fall guy". A Time article from the period makes no reference to "fall guys", although the scandal may have had yet to fully play out. However, this event may have popularized the phrase (via post-hoc eponymy).

Legitimization occurred in the 1940s, primarily with the meaning of "take on work/responsibility". A paper on "Isolationism is not dead" quotes an anonymous editorial from a paper in the Pacific Northwest on the topic of the Bretton Woods and the Food Conferences upon which the US became the "fall guy, the one to carry the load". By 1950 in the context of unions and industrial society, the term referred to the low man on the totem pole, to whom the unpleasant tasks would be assigned, specifically that of filling out questionnaires.

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