English Idiom: Jump on the bandwagon

The idiom which is going to be discussed here in this post is: Jump on the bandwagon so notice the following example to know its meaning:

Adrian: I thought your dad hated Mrs. Johnson already.
Ted: Well, she’s the manager now, so he decided to jump on the bandwagon.
Adrian: I think most of the other colleagues are like your father.
Ted: I think so, and this is true, unfortunately.

As you can see from the above example, Mrs. Johnson is the new manager in the company which she had not been loved before she became the company’s new manager. After Mrs. Johnson became the company’s new manager most of the people who worked there in the company changed their mind about her such as Ted’s father. Ted’s father used to hate Mrs. Johnson before, but his mind changed about her after she became the new manager like many other people in the company. So you can see that this change was expressed by the phrase Jumping on the bandwagon which means those people who hated Mrs. Johnson, suddenly joined a popular change in their mind about Mrs. Johnson in the company and it is “not to hate Mrs. Johnson, and to love her”

Idiom #251

Meaning:

• to join a popular trend or activity
• to join something successful because it is popular
• to join or follow something once it is successful or popular
• to become involved with or support an activity or cause that has recently become popular (usually for some personal gain or advantage)

To know more about this idiom let’s check the definition of this idiom in some great dictionaries:

Climb on the bandwagon
 Jump on the bandwagon
Get on the bandwagon:

Oxford:

Join others in doing or supporting something fashionable or likely to be successful.

Cambridge:​
To join an activity that has become very popular or to change your opinion to one that has become very popular so that you can share in its success

Dictionary:

To join or give support to a party or movement that seems to be assured of success

Related words and phrases:

advantage, appearance, chic, convention, craze, fad, furor, join, latest, mold, pattern, trend, vogue

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Origin:

Based on the above explanations we can understand that when you jump on the bandwagon, it means you are going to start supporting a hobby, idea, person, etc. after it has become popular or successful. The word “bandwagon” is the rather unimaginative name for a wagon that carried a circus band. It appeared for the first time in print in the equally unimaginatively titled book “The Life of P.T. Barnum” ” written by Himself, which was published in 1855.

P.T. Barnum was a famous circus owner and showman. Circuses were known for their showy parades with some wagons. The people in cities and villages were attracted to these circus parades and bandwagons were part of those parades as they could act as an easy marketing ploy to get people to go to the circus. After that politicians started to use bandwagons in parades through towns on their campaign trails too. Over time it became so popular to use these bandwagons and the phrase stopped meaning the literal riding of a bandwagon and started to refer to jumping into anything that was popular.

Let’s take a look at some examples of this idiom to understand it better:

• Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon to try and stop smoking in the workplace.
• Whenever World Economic Forum is going to make a new forum many people jump on the bandwagon about globalization and then do nothing.
• Lots of people jumped on the bandwagon when Croatia’s soccer team could go to the final match in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
• After Donald Trump became the US president many people jumped on the bandwagon against him in the country.
• After she won elections by promising to cut taxes, most of the others jumped on the bandwagon.
• I can’t stand these people who just jump on the bandwagon after a win. It’s so bad to be so. Where were they when the team was terrible and faced so many problems?
• Whenever the new styles become so popular, Beth jumps on the bandwagon and she buys new clothes.
• Mr. Smith was not so popular and many people didn’t pay much attention to him, but after his death, many people jumped on the bandwagon and talked about how good a man was he!
• A: Did you enjoy that movie?
B: Not so much, but everybody is jumping on the bandwagon now that it won the Academy Award.

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