skin in the game

[gayleposner]

With respect to your answer to Question56669.html.....do you know if there is a story that goes along with Buffet's comment.....is it "pigskin" in a football game.....what does the "skin" refer to and what does "game" refer to....I know how to use the expression and I know what Buffet means when he uses it.... but what I don't know is what the expression originally referred to. Can you help? Gayle [Email address removed as per site policy. - AB Editor]

[Quizmonster]

I don't know the answer to your question, but here are a couple of stabs at it. 'Skin' is sometimes used to mean one's life or very 'being', as in a sentence such as 'He did it to save his own wretched skin'. It was also, at one time - certainly within Buffet's lifetime - an American slang term for a dollar.

It seems to me, therefore, that Buffet might have meant a) that the people running a business should see it as part of their life, an integral part of their very existence, as it were...or b) that they must have their own money involved. In each case, that would surely imply that they would work all out for the business's success.