We say it all the time but where does the expression “riding shotgun” come from?

When traveling by car with a group of friends, nobody wants to be squashed in the back when you could be sitting in the passenger seat. The front seat not only offers extra legroom but also puts you in charge of in-car entertainment. To make sure you get the best spot, though, you might need to “call shotgun” before anyone else does.

Where does “shotgun” come from?

You’ve probably never asked yourself the question, but what do shotguns have to do with sitting next to the driver?

Speaking to Reader’s Digest, linguist and lexicographer Grant Barrett, co-host of the national radio show “A Way With Words,” revealed the answer. It turns out the phrase dates back to the days of stagecoaches, the horse-drawn carriages that transported passengers, goods, and mail across the Wild West in the 19th century.

Journeys were often fraught with danger, with robbers targeting the stagecoaches in hopes of snagging valuable goods.

Armed for the ride

“This saying comes from the stagecoach era,” explains Barrett. “One guy would control the horses, and one guy would literally hold a gun and be on the lookout for an attack, and that’s true and verified.”

The man with the gun was said to be “riding” or “sitting shotgun,” a phrase that was used in its literal sense for several decades.

From the Old West to Hollywood

The term made its way into public consciousness thanks to “Riding Shotgun,” a 1954 Western movie starring Randolph Scott. Scott’s character was the armed guard on a stagecoach seeking revenge after an outlaw killed his sister and nephew in a stagecoach holdup.

Before long, newspaper articles began using “riding shotgun” in new ways - to describe police officers traveling in pairs to combat a burglary ring in 1959, and soon after in 1960, groups of young people riding together in cars, much like how we use it today.

“Basically, the term existed in the Old West, the movie ‘Riding Shotgun’ relaunched it, and then we find it in the language of police and teenagers right away, and by 1960, it’s already set in the language,” Barrett summarizes.

A phrase that keeps evolving

Over the past six decades, “riding shotgun” has evolved to include other situations that don’t involve a vehicle at all, such as accompanying someone to an event or perhaps helping a friend with a task.

So next time you call shotgun, you’ll know that what started as a matter of survival on the frontier has become a friendly fight for the best seat in the car.

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