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Reader question: Please explain “dropped the baton” in this sentence: “The president is the standard bearer and in this case I think he simply dropped the baton with the whole world watching.” My comments: He simply made a mistake. He blundered. That’s all. The president blundered and perhaps made a fool of himself in front of the camera but that’s alright. Presidents are human. That’s alright. At any rate, that’s what “drop the baton” suggests here. It implies a mistake, a slip of tongue or something, nothing serious, perhaps. The “baton” in “drop the baton” refers to, not the music conductor’s baton, a slender stick or the policeman’s baton, a fatter rod that he wields in his hand and which he hits offenders with, but to the light hollow cylinder that a runner pass on to a teammate in a relay race. Yes, “pass on the baton” is the other phrase (of the same origin) that springs to mind. Time to pass on the baton, for instance. That means, figuratively speaking, it’s time for an older person to, say, give his job to one from the younger generation. Anyways, in a relay race, a runner is supposed to put the baton into the palm of the next running mate as efficiently as possible so that the next runner can hit their stride upon catching firm hold of the baton. Well, in hurry and in haste, runners often fumble at this and the baton is often dropped to the floor. This is a costly mistake, of course, especially in the 4 x 100 relay – seldom can a team recover from such a mistake. | 
