'Sacrificial lamb'

[Agnes]

How can I best use 'sacrificial lamb'? In what context? I do have an idea but i am not sure of its rightness. If for example one gets the blame/purnishment or whatever for something they didn't do, because maybe they happened to be present at the scene of say, some crime I commit.( being framed for example). Would i then say, they were my sacrificial lamb?

[BobK]

Originally Posted by Agnes

How can I best use 'sacrificial lamb'? In what context? I do have an idea but i am not sure of its rightness. If for example one gets the blame/purnishment or whatever for something they didn't do, because maybe they happened to be present at the scene of say, some crime I commit.( being framed for example). Would i then say, they were my sacrificial lamb?

Nearly, but you got the wrong animal! A person who gets the blame for something he didn't do is a 'scapegoat'. A usage that isn't standard yet (I'm glad to say - although it is quite popular, especially with extremist politicians) is to make this a verb and use it in the passive: 'the working classes are always being scapegoated like this'.

A 'sacrificial lamb' is just someone who is put into a position of fatal danger without realizing it, for no practical reason. A 'scapegoat' can ba a 'sacrificial lamb' but needn't be - there doesn't have to be any blame, just an appetite for blood.

b

ps FYI:
The idea of a 'sacrificial lamb' (an offering of a live animal to a deity, usually in a ceremony) is referred to in the expression 'like lambs to the slaughter' - people who go willingly into a fatal position without knowing the fate that awaits them.

On the day the factory was to be closed, all the workers - not knowing what to expect - went in to work like lambs to the slaughter.

[Agnes]

Sure did get the wrong animal I can see!!!! Thanks for the explanation!

[Agnes]

Is there a term for someone that's just being 'used' for for example to get at another person, or to get to a higher position at work?

[Anglika]

Perhaps a "stalking horse"?

[curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Anglika

Perhaps a "stalking horse"?

No, a stalking horse is a term used to describe someone who is used to flush out opposition (or support) it is often used in politics when there is a leadership race. The stalking horse (who is someone who has no chance of winning) is sent into the fray to polarise the sides in order that the credible candidates can then take up the challenge knowing what they are up against.

Maybe a 'stooge' might be used to gain advantage

[mykwyner]

A cat's paw is someone who is used as a dupe by another person who wishes to gain an advantage.

[BobK]

A 'patsy'?

Incidentally, AmE has given us a useful word related to 'scapegoat'. Say four people have committed a crime, and three of them want the fourth to 'take the rap'; (maybe they just don't like him, or he has a cleaner record than the rest of them and so will get a lighter sentence, or something like that). So they frame him; he becomes the fall-guy.

b
ps - At least, I think it's AmE; it's got the right sort of pithiness and conciseness.