Throw in the towel?

Reader question:

In this passage from a story about Microsoft deciding not to buy Yahoo – "This squarely puts the pressure on Jerry Yang to deliver results and shareholder value," Standard & Poor's equity analyst Scott Kessler said. "You are going to see a lot of shareholders just throwing in the towel because they are going to realize it's going to take awhile for the stock to get back to where it was Friday" (Yahoo shares tumble in premarket trading with Microsoft out, May 5, 2008) – what does "throwing in the towel" mean?

My comments:

"Throwing in the towel" is a figurative expression here. No Yahoo shareholders are actually clutching any towels, nor are they throwing any away.

Towel-throwing originally comes from the game of boxing. In a boxing match, while the boxer fights in the ring, his coach sits outside watching the action clutching a white towel (for wiping sweat off of the player during the break between rounds). However, if the coach sees that his fighter is beaten up and sees enough of it, he may throw that towel into the ring to end the match right there. By boxing rules, a coach throwing in the towel is his signal to the referee that his camp accepts defeat. In other words, they surrender. And by throwing in the towel, the coach wants to spare his player any further punishment and the risk of injury.

In the case of Yahoo, their shares are falling sharply and some shareholders are not happy. By "throwing in the towel", they mean to say they've given up all hope of the price of their shares recovering any time soon, if at all. In other words, they consider the match (against Microsoft and the stock market) lost.

As you can see, the term can be used in other fields of life and, as a matter of fact, people are throwing the towel left, right and center. Here are a few examples:

1. Toshack: Mourinho threw in the towel

John Toshack has launched an astonishing attack on Jose Mourinho, labelling the former Chelsea boss as a quitter who got lucky with the team he inherited and then jumped ship when the going got tough.

Writing his weekly column in Spain's best selling paper Marca, the Wales manager said: "The Special One threw in the towel."

- dailymail.co.uk, October 1, 2007.

2. Tom Friedman Throws in the Towel on Iraq

Finally, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has thrown in the towel on the Iraq War.

"It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war," he wrote in his Times column on August 4.

Long the war's leading liberal defender, Friedman came late and reluctantly to the realization that the jig is up.

"We can't throw more good lives after good lives," he wrote.

Beyond the human costs of the quagmire, which the peace movement has long tallied, Friedman also recognized what we in the peace movement have been saying about the security ramifications: "The longer we maintain a unilateral failing strategy in Iraq... the stronger the enemies of freedom will become," Friedman concluded.

- commondreams.org, August 5, 2006.

3. Notes on people: Reagans' Attire as Carter Threw In the Towel

It was late afternoon in California and the polls were still open, so Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy thought it would be a good time to get ready for the long election night ahead.

So she got in the tub and he jumped in the shower, and that's where they were when President Jimmy Carter went on national television to concede the election.

That, at least, is the barefoot note to history supplied by Mrs. Reagan in an interview with Family Circle magazine. Recalling the moment, Mrs. Reagan said: "I had just gotten out of the tub, wearing nothing but a towel, when I glanced at the TV set. Then I shouted 'Ronnie!' He dashed from the shower, also wrapped in a towel, and together we watched in astonishment as President Carter conceded the election to him.

"There we were, standing there, each clutching our towels, trying to take in the amazing truth that he would be President and I First Lady."

- The New York Times, August 11, 1981.