the.com/designated driver
The friend who sacrifices their night so yours can be forgotten safely.
means The person in a group who agrees in advance not to drink alcohol so they can safely drive the others home.
from A compound coined in English, building on the longstanding use of 'designated' to mean officially assigned to a role (as in 'designated hitter'). The specific term 'designated driver' rose to prominence through deliberate public health campaigns in the late 1980s, which borrowed the phrasing from sports jargon to make sober driving sound like a normal, named role rather than a buzzkill — a bit of social engineering through vocabulary that worked.
- origin
- Harvard School of Public Health popularized the term in 1988
- reward
- usually just free soda and moral superiority
- rotation
- works best when everyone actually takes a turn
- myth
- one coffee does not reverse the job requirement