For representative purposes.
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What is the meaning and origin of ‘get on the bandwagon’? (Jyot Gulati, Rohtak)
When you ‘get on the bandwagon’, what you are doing is following in the footsteps of or following the example of someone else. You become involved in an activity that is successful, not because you are interested in it, but because everyone else is taking part in it —supporting the activity seems to be the fashionable thing to do. You are hoping to take advantage of the situation, and praying that some of the success will rub off on you. There is an ulterior motive for what you are doing; you are being opportunistic. People who get on the bandwagon, usually do so, only after someone or something has become successful or popular. For example, it is very common for people to get on the bandwagon of a candidate who is the frontrunner. It is also possible to say, ‘jump/climb on the bandwagon’.
Neethu gets on the bandwagon whenever the college team wins something. Otherwise, she has no interest in sports.
Americans coined this idiom. The bandwagon in the expression refers to the colourfully decorated horse-drawn wagon, with a live band sitting on top of it, that circus owners used to send around town to both entertain and attract the attention of the public. This was the owner’s way of informing the public that the circus was in town. When Zachary Taylor, a Presidential candidate, got on one of these circus wagons in 1848, the idiom began to be used in politics to mean what it does today.
What is the meaning of ‘hustle and bustle’? (K. Saraswathi, Coonoor)
This is an expression made popular by the Americans. The ‘t’ in both words is silent; the two words rhyme with ‘muscle’ and ‘tussle’. The expression is normally used to talk about a noisy place where there are lots of activities going on. For example, when we enter a relatively big railway station in our country, we are struck by the noise and the numerous activities going on — people talking loudly and walking quickly, suitcases being dragged, vendors shouting, trains blowing their horns, etc. The noisy crowd and the constant movement produce an environment that is full of energy and excitement. It is possible to have this kind of energy and confusion in a smaller place as well. For example, when someone in the family is getting married, the week before the wedding, the house is full of hustle and bustle.
After having grown up in a small village, Teja found the hustle and bustle of city life a little intimidating.
Every six months, I take a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
‘Hustle’ comes from the Dutch ‘hutselen’ meaning ‘to shake’. It was borrowed into English, and with the passage of time, both the pronunciation and the meaning of the word changed. It became ‘hustle’ to mean ‘to move along quickly’. ‘Bersten’, which gives us the modern ‘bustle’, is an English word meaning ‘act with vigour’. The Americans combined the two words to give us the expression ‘hustle and bustle’.
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Published – July 14, 2025 08:30 am IST
