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Comment by interestica | Hacker News Reader

Is the idiom "behind the 8 ball" common in the USA? I'm not sure I'd heard it before Biden used it to refer to the disadvantages black people face when trying to get a loan, etc. I'm not sure billiards/pool is popular enough (especially for young people) for someone to quickly deduce the meaning. I found it to be a strange term and wondered if it was just a dated term. Would anyone in K-12 understand it?

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It’s not that common of an idiom in the US, but not unheard of.

I think most could figure out that he was referring to people being disadvantaged from context clues, though.

Yeah, it's easy enough to figure out that it means "bad" -- but that still misses the whole point of it as a metaphor. I think, being unaware of the billiards idiom, my brain first went to 'magic 8-ball' and wondered if he was referring to 'chance'.

Yeah, I'm in my 20s and I regularly use it without any confusion from the people I communicate with. Maybe its popularity varies with region?

I'm a pool player and pretty well versed in the different billiard type games.

In Europe they're almost certainly more likely to say "snookered" instead, as 8 ball is not their main sport.

US players generally understand that reference, but I'm not sure non- players will.

I don't think it's that common, and I don't think I've ever heard it before.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=behind+the+eig...

Edit for comparison: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=behind+the+eig...

I wouldn't say it's the most common idiom, but it's definitely something I heard growing up.

It’s common but, I think, fading out with younger generations.

I don't play pool, but I happened to witness a game or two and thus I happened to understand the jist while still needing to look it up...

Search results include definitions such as:

"A term, referring to the game of pool, meaning in an unfavorable or uncomfortable position"

> Is the idiom "behind the 8 ball" common in the USA?

My Dad was born around the same time as Joe Biden (a few years different) and also from Pennsylvania (though I don't think this is particularly associatsd with that region) and used it fairly frequently; I also remember hearing it fairly frequently growing up fron others of his age cohort (and Boomers) and media created by and for them.

I think it's a fading idiom, though.

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