Why is he called a "body man"?
December 24, 2005 8:29 AM   Subscribe

The personal aide to a President, other politician, and certain other muckety-mucks is sometimes known as a "body man". (This usage was popularized, but not invented, by Charlie's role in The West Wing.) Why "body man"? Does anybody know the origin/etymology of the term?
posted by willbaude to Writing & Language (13 answers total)
 
This may help explain it.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:48 AM on December 24, 2005


Response by poster: I saw that, but it doesn't actually answer the question of where the phrase, it just says what a "body man" is. Right?
posted by willbaude at 8:56 AM on December 24, 2005


Maybe, due to all the time they spend with their politicians, they know, metaphorically, where all the bodies are buried? /supposition
posted by jbrjake at 9:30 AM on December 24, 2005


No, it's another word for valet, which used to be your "man." (Think Jeeves, who was really a butler, but you know.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:43 AM on December 24, 2005


Another story about Marvin.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:46 AM on December 24, 2005


(Last post, I promise.) The SS also uses the term body man for the agent who is the head of the detail and in charge of protecting the president's body.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:51 AM on December 24, 2005


When I worked for Rev. Jesse Jackson in the mid nineties, his "body man" was not involved in personal protection in any way. He was the guy who when Rev. Jackson said "get this done", would do it. Whether it was opening a door, picking up his cleaning, fetching a pitcher of water, the body man was simply a go to guy for all things not related to personal protection.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:59 AM on December 24, 2005


Probably comes from body servant. As to why the "body" part, I'll guess it's because the job consists of exactly getting the illustrious person's physical body in the right place at the right time and in good care.
posted by fleacircus at 10:05 AM on December 24, 2005


Perhaps an evolution of batman (meaning a military officer's orderly)?
posted by jtron at 10:57 AM on December 24, 2005


perhaps it is the "body" who is there when the presidnet is not. AKA a body stand in
posted by edgeways at 1:00 PM on December 24, 2005


Uh, I thought it was just that the guy attends to the president's, you know, physical body. I mean Rove is the president's "man" - if you see him coming, you know Dubya sent him, that he speaks for the prez, and that when you speak to him, you're speaking to the prez. But at any given moment he might be in his own office, on a plane bound for Florida, or on Capitol Hill. Rove's job is the president's agenda; this guy's job is the president's body.

And as you all know, the body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. And the king is a thing of nothing.
posted by Clay201 at 1:44 PM on December 24, 2005


Body man is almost certainly an egalitarian wash on body servant, which appears to be a very old English term predating the Frenchified valet. Safire writes up some citations dating back to JFK, but offers no origin other than the obvious.

Compare dogsbody, though, which seems to have an independent origin. Perhaps they merged.

Rove, by the way, is no valet.
posted by dhartung at 11:25 PM on December 24, 2005


Safire writes up some citations dating back to JFK

dhartung, that's very misleading, as it seems to imply that the phrase goes back to the early 1960s. I'd hate for those too lazy to click the link to get the wrong impression. I don't think Chris Matthews using the wording in 1989 to refer to JFK's assistant in any way dates this term "back to JFK." I mean, damn, just a sentence before, Safire says the farthest back he could date the term is 1988.
posted by jbrjake at 7:58 AM on December 25, 2005


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