Orrin Hatch protests the snickering commentators after saying senators 'shot their wad on health care'

Eighty-three-year-old Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) learned Monday that to "shoot one's wad" no longer means to most people what it did in the good ol' days.

Last Wednesday, the Utah senator complained that "we're not going back to health care. We're in tax now. As far as I'm concerned, they shot their wad on health care and that's the way it is. I'm sick of it." The comment naturally earned a few chuckles, although Hatch did nothing to discourage amused smiles when he protested Monday:

It's true that "wad" used to commonly refer to "a plug of tow, cloth, etc." that was used to "retain the powder and shot in position in charging a gun or cartridge" and that "to shoot one's wad" meant, colloquially, "to do all that one can do." Hatch is also correct that few of us were alive during the Civil War to actually learn this.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

He fails to add though, that despite his age potentially precluding him from searching the phrase on Urban Dictionary first, he was not alive during the Civil War either.