- Calling "shotgun" to secure the front seat before a car long journey is about as satisfying as it gets.
- But the little-known story of how we came to use the phrase is fascinating, and more than 160 years old.
- In the Wild West-era of the US, around 1850, stagecoach drivers used to ride with a "shotgun guard" offering him protection from bandits and Native Indians.
- Here's how the dangerous, but lucrative, job became a popular everyday idiom.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
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Common childhood sayings are so-well known that we often have no idea what their reals origins are.
And one — the age-old trick of calling "shotgun" to claim the front passenger seat of a car — has a fascinating backstory dating back 160 years.
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In the Wild West era of US history, a "shotgun guard" used to ride alongside a stagecoach driver as his protection, keeping a keen eye out for bandits and highwaymen.
When we call "shotgun" to secure the front seat, it's a reference to that once-vital job.
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The term "riding shotgun" or to "ride shotgun" became a popular idiom in the 1950s, appearing in many western movies, according to Etymology Dictionary.
In the 1939 movie "Stagecoach" Marshal Curly Wilcox fights off Apache Indians while riding shotgun.
"You boys take care of the office for a couple of days. I'm going to Lordsburg with Buck. I'm gonna ride shotgun," he says at one point.
Read more: These commonly-used sayings about investing aren't as accurate as you may think
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The 1954 western movie titled "Riding Shotgun", with Randolph Scott and Joan Weldon, also chronicled the life of a stagecoach guard in the Old West.
People often call shotgun to claim things other than a car seat, also known as calling "dibs."
Dibs has been said for longer, and is recorded as a common phrase as far back as 1915 having emerged around 1915. It is a contraction of the word "dibstone," a 17th-century children's game in England, where players claimed game pieces by shouting "dibs!"
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