buck-passing culture
- noun
- /bʌkˈpæsɪŋ ˈkʌltʃər/
:
cultura de echar la culpa
- Efforts to improve accountability failed because the buck-passing culture was deeply entrenched.
Examples
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The new manager is trying to change the buck-passing culture that has developed in the office.
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A buck-passing culture often leads to low morale and inefficiency.
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This buck-passing culture is toxic.
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Don't we have a buck-passing culture here?
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A buck-passing culture often leads to low morale and inefficiency.
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The new manager is trying to change the buck-passing culture that has developed in the office.
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Efforts to improve accountability failed because the buck-passing culture was deeply entrenched.
Synonyms
18
4.6
Blaming other people for a problem instead of trying to fix it
17
4.8
People or groups say others caused a problem to avoid taking responsibility
Antonyms
198
6.1
Being responsible for your actions and having to explain them to other people
How Responsible
Surface Forms
Morphology
buck-passing + culture
The sense 'a culture where people shift blame' is not derivable from the literal meanings of the constituents: 'buck' does not literally mean a dollar or deer here and 'pass' does not transparently signal shifting responsibility. 'Pass the buck' is an idiomatic construction whose meaning must be learned; therefore a B1 learner who only knows the component words would likely not predict the expression's meaning.
Etymology
Buck-passing culture comes from old poker games where players used a small marker called a buck to show whose turn it was; if someone did not want to deal, they would pass the buck to the next player. That's why today buck-passing culture means a place where people often shift blame or 'avoid responsibility'.