Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Bite the bullet

The phrase bite the bullet evokes such an unpleasant image, which suits, given that it's generally defined as behaving "bravely or stoically when facing pain or a difficult situation" (The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer). I can't help but picture an Old West cowboy (or maybe a Civil War soldier) biting on a bullet as surgery is performed to remove a bullet (of course!) from his leg...

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The Dictionary of Idioms strengthens that mental image in this explanation:

This phrase is of military origin, but the precise allusion is uncertain. Some say it referred to the tratment of a wounded soldier without anesthesia, so that he would be asked to bite on a lead bulleet during treatment. Also, Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1796) holds that grenadiers being disciplined with the cat-o--nine tails would bite on a bullet to avoid crying out in pain.

I'll pause here so we can all wince in sympathy.

 

Now, forward, to see if The Phrase Finder has more to say about this phrase, and of course, it does! The post considers several origin theories... all of a military nature... before settling on the "surgery before anesthesia" explanation. Word Histories also has a nice entry and offers several 19th-century appearances, including in author Rudyard Kipling's The Light That Failed, published in installments in 1890. Finally, The Grammarist muses on another possible origin for the phrase, with a nod to my imaginings above about cowboys and the Old West:

Biting the bullet is a cliché of the American Old West, cowboys are often depicted as biting the bullet when undergoing medical procedures without anesthetic. Bullets are made of lead, a soft metal, and biting a bullet was a distraction designed to stop a patient from crying out. The term bite the bullet is older than the 1800s, however, and may actually refer to how early guns worked. Gunpowder and a ball were previously loaded into paper cartridges. In the heat of battle, the soldier would rip open the tip of the paper cartridge with his teeth and pour the gunpowder and ball into his gun. Biting these cartridges and calmly loading a gun in the face of the enemy certainly meant facing a difficult situation with bravery, as in the idiom bite the bullet.

So, there you go. I've exhausted my allotted time to research this phrase, so it's time for me to bite the bullet and get busy on the rest of my to-do list for today.

When the bullet is in flight, don't bite.
Photo by physicist Ernst Mach (1888), depicting the waves around a supersonic brass bullet.
Scan from book (now lost), Public Domain
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15716604

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Allotriophagy (and a dose of what's coming up... so to speak)

If you've been following me for a while, you may know I'm galloping along through a Great Escapes virtual book tour (February 15–28) for the newest book in my Silver Rush series, THE SECRET IN THE WALL. Heads up: The tour includes a raffle, in which I'll be giving away copies of the book and Starbucks gift cards. You can enter the raffle on any of the stops, or on the main page of the tour, through the 28th. 

Speaking of Starbucks....

... In an interview I did for the Cozy Up With Kathy blog site, I bumped up against a question that was new to me: "Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry."

I readily confess I lean heavily on coffee and eatables at the "snackety-snacks" end of the food spectrum. My dependence on snack items to get me through the day now has me wondering if I suffer a bit from allotriophagy.

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This alarming 19th-century word is defined in The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard as "a strong urge or desire to eat food that is abnormal or unhealthy." Now, I don't think my particular cravings are "abnormal"—I don't have an urge to ingest baking soda, for instance, or dishwashing liquid (yuck!), examples given by the Psychology Dictionary for allotriophagy. Still, maybe I should keep a closer eye on my afternoon potato-chip binges...

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... In the meantime, I want to let you know that I'll be speaking with mystery author Donis Casey about my newest book in a Poisoned Pen Bookstore virtual event on Monday, February 28, 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Everyone and anyone is invited! The links are as follows (note that you don't need to be a "FaceBookie" to watch; there's a YouTube alternative):

• www.facebook.com/thepoisonedpenbookstore/live
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTbRuLNmD8EhT4WrGGMVW-w

If you're curious to hear me chat about my book (and maybe witness my cat take a stroll across my desk in front the camera), please join us!

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Weasel word

Weasel word seems like it might be a relatively new term; it just has that "feel" to me.

But, a-ha!

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer sheds light on my confusion. Whereas weasel out (definition: to back out of a situation or commitment, especially in a sneaky way) dates to mid-1900s, weasel word (a word used to deprive a statement of its force or evade a direct commitment) harkens back to the late 1800s.

Perhaps.

Exploring the internet, I found some disagreement over when first use for weasel word occurred. Word Histories gave a concise explanation of the phrase's origin and pinned its first appearance in print to 1900:

...It alludes to the weasel’s supposed ability to suck the contents out of an egg while leaving the shell superficially intact.

 This phrase was invented and defined by Stewart Chaplin in "The Stained-Glass Political Platform," a short story published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (The Century Co., New York) of June 1900.

ThoughtCo agreed, and added that the phrase was popularized in a 1916 speech by Theodore Roosevelt.

The Phrase Finder dipped a toe into possible 19th century use, citing none other than TR himself:

In September 1916, the New York Times published a piece in which Roosevelt refuted the notion that he had stolen the phrase from Chaplin and claimed to have coined it independently in 1879: 

Colonel Roosevelt, on his way here this morning from Portland, Me., told a Times reporter how he happened to use the expression "weasel words" in describing some of President Wilson's utterances months ago. After the expression had been widely quoted, somebody discovered that it had been used years ago by the writer of a magazine article in the Century Magazine, and the Colonel was charged with having plagiarized the writer. 

"About thirty-seven years ago." Colonel Roosevelt said in talking of the origin of the expression. "I was going up a mountain in the Maine woods in a carriage, driven by Dave Sewall. We saw an old man along the roadside. When we passed Dave Sewall said: "That there man can do a lot of funny things with this language of ours. He can take a word and weasel it around and suck the meat out of it like a weasel sucks the meat out of an egg, until it don't mean anything at all. The Colonel said the expression [weasel words] occurred to him when he read some of President Wilson's notes.

Wikipedia (in a VERY comprehensive, detailed, and footnoted entry) offered the same explanation(s). I turned to Google's Ngram, and did find one mention from 1887 in Peterson's Magazine, right here. So maybe in the 1880s—my timeframe of interest—it could have been used in conversation. ("Maybe" being my weasel word of choice, followed closely by "could" because I like to hedge my bets.)

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Aprosexia

This week's word is not really slang, but a medical term from the late 19th century that applies perfectly to today's world...

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According to The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard, aprosexia is defined as "a complete inability to focus or concentrate due to a distracted, wandering mind." I found a lovely reference to it, in the 1889 Annual of the Universal Medical Science and Analytical Index, Volume 4, to wit:

(You can read Dr. Guye's medical paper here, in the Sept. 28, 1889, issue of The British Medical Journal.) 

Whereas physicians from the past blamed this distracted state on "nasal disorders," nowadays it's ascribed to our fixation with social media, smart phones, Netflix... well, you get the idea.

Does this expression look familiar?
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I'd investigate this fascinating word further, but I'm definitely suffering from aprosexia today, so I think I'll take a break and go find some chocolate to eat instead.

By Emily boston - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47278239