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| | Straight Dope Staff Report: What's the origin of "riding shotgun"? |
 | | Older folks (our age) or fans of old westerns may think this is a stupid question, assuming that the "shotgun" position, next to the driver, derives from the days of the stagecoach, when an armed guard rode next to the driver and carried a shotgun for defense against robbers, wild animals, Indians, and telemarketers. |
 | | A frontier term, "shotgun" was first recorded in Kentucky and noted by James Fenimore Cooper as part of "the language of the west." The weapon was also called a two-shoot gun, a scatter-gun, and a few other terms. |
 | | Dropping "riding" and using the simple "shotgun" (as in "I call shotgun") to mean the passenger seat comes in the early 60s. |
| www.straightdope.com /mailbag/mrideshotgun.html (872 words) |
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