One occupational hazard of punditry and blogging is being accused of being "in the tank" for someone or other. Another, of course, is actually being in the tank in question. But where does that phrase come from? What kind of tank? Julian Sanchez explores.
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The Proverbial Tank
29 Feb 2008 01:13 pm
Comments (22)
I thought it meant driving a big tank and rolling over the opposition and crushing them and blowing big holes in them with the big cannon on the front part of the tank!
I assumed it was tank as in think tank. I take "X is in the tank for McCain" to mean "X is (effectively) on McCain's think tank" or "X is part of McCain's brain trust" or similar.
They got it down to "tanking" from boxing - putting on a facade but losing. Then he wondered where boxing got it. It might be from English slang for drunkenness, "tanked" was short for "too much of the tankard".
It's just a guess, but it could have started as meaning a boxer was drunk, then morphed to a boxer who was not fighting as well as he could for any reason. After that, it could morph to meaning a boxer who didn't do his best for the specific reason that he was paid not to.
It originated with Mike Dukakis's campaign and it means something akin to "willing to humiliate yourself on behalf of"
As in "Dukakis was in the tank for George Bush."
perhaps having to do with swimming with those sea bass that have frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.
I just think we need to make sure that our ability to discuss this expression not be kept off the table.
Maybe you should ask Barbara Wallraff.
I agree with Njorl it's from boxing, but I disagree with how it got there. I think it's an extension of the "in the bag" metaphor, with tanks being seen as even more reliable receptacles than bags. I also posit that this is mobster/bookie slang. If the fight is in the bag, you can lay down a few bucks on it. If the fighters are in the tank, you can lay down your paycheck.
And as for how the term bled over from boxing and organized crime to politics remains a great mystery for the ages, I'm sure. Suggesting that a politician at some point may have been in the tank for mobsters in the same way a boxer would be? Perish the thought.
Isn't this sort of thing what we keep Bill Safire around for?
In the case of Hitchens or Ann Althouse, the tank refers to the drunk tank.
I think it's also related to "taking a dive," another boxing term for throwing a fight. A dive into a tank of water.
As I tried to say at Sanchez's place, I think it comes from old rainwater collection usage.
Before municipal water, needed rainwater was collected in gutters and flowed to the bottom and into the tank. Rain also fell in the yard or the neighbor's gutters and into their tank.
A reporter is the rain, "Let the facts lead where they may", and his path is not predetermined unless it is really (secretly)determined and they are as good as being "in the tank" already.
I'm not buying that one, carsick. The expression isn't confined to press metaphors.
phil
It also works as an odds and betting thing. The water, fight, could go anywhere unless it's as good as "in the tank" for someone...or some bettor/bookie.
Obviously, it's an axlotl tank! You can go on generating deja-vu punditry forever!
iirc, in Brando's famous taxicab speech in *On the Waterfront*, he calls himself "a rubber-lipped ex-tanker", which in that context is certainly a reference to throwing a prizefight.
As in, Ambinder is clearly in the tank for Hillary yet continues to lie to his readers and pretend that he is objective.
In all seriousness, I performed introspection in order to discover what I associate with the expression, and I found that I get vague mental imagery of the lobster tank at the supermarket from when I was a kid. They kept live lobsters and crabs in there and would pull them out for you if you wanted one.
So for me that is where it is coming from: the idea of 'being in the tank' suggests you are in there for good and there's no chance you'll get out on your own. You're too far gone.
According to the retired English prof and blogger Michael Sheehan, "in the tank" is from boxing, and is a variation on "take a dive." A semi-obsolete meaning of "tank" is swimming pool (competitive swimmers still refer to the pool as "the tank" and the rest of us still use the term "tank top" to refer to what once was the top half of a man's bathing costume). So to "go in the tank" or to "tank" is to dive, that is, to fall intentionally, and a fighter who tanks or is in the tank is one who is corruptly collaborating with his opponent.
See http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
I don't know anyone who uses that hackneyed pharase.
Comments closed March 14, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Speaking of accusation of being in the tank, Matt, you might want to attend to this:
http://www.bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/9077?in=00:57:45&out=00:58:00
Eli Lake: "Yglesias is a big neocon."
Posted by southpaw | February 29, 2008 1:48 PM