Talk:Bite the Bullet

Origin of term

Is the origin of the term given here (patients biting bullets during surgery as a form of pain management) correct? According to Sacred cow#Historical significance, biting bullets was done as part of gunloading in the mid-19th century, and the Wiktionary entry suggests that it comes from soldiers biting open paper cartridges of bullets. I think at best it should say the origin of the term is disputed, and either link to the Wiktionary entry for more info, or follow the statement with citations like [1],[2], etc. Thoughts? -kotra (talk) 22:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Im not so tech savvy, so i apologize that i am being ignorant of formatting, however i wrote the original entry on the idiomatic meaning, and i have found a source for the origin i know of from hearsay. Bite the bullet

Meaning

Endure pain with fortitude.

Origin

In the days before effective anesthetics soldiers were given bullets to bite on to help them endure pain. Improvements in battlefield medicine has seen the real act of biting bullets migrated into metaphor, although it must still happen occasionally.

First recorded in print in Kipling's Light that Failed, 1891. Kilpling uses 'bite the bullet' rather than 'bite this bullet', which we might have expected if the idea were new to the character being spoken to. That tends to suggest the phrase was already public when the story was written. Source- http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/65400.html 71.183.37.47 (talk) 01:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, although I'd say the origin is still disputed. I've added the alternate explanation in addition to the pain management one, with citations for both, including the source you gave here. -kotra (talk) 20:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Requested move 28 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 06:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

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Bite the bullet (disambiguation) → Bite the Bullet – Per WP:DIFFCAPS. Everything on the page being disambiguated is capitalized as a proper noun. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 19:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support aside from the philosophy mention in the "Other uses" all other uses are in title case so per WP:DABNAME like Friendly Fire also the film gets more views (3,311) than the general concept (2,701)[[3]] so its probably safest to disambiguate. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:08, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Bite the Bullet already goes to the DAB page so WP:DIFFCAPS supports keeping no primary topic for the upper case and WP:DABNAME supports moving the DAB to the upper case. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:58, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 20:53, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nomination; Crouch, Swale and Rreagan007. There are 18 entries listed upon the Bite the bullet (disambiguation) page and the seven-sentence stub, carrying a single inline cite delineating the common expression, does not appear to possess such predominance as to overwhelm the notability of the other 17 entries. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom and since the primary topic isn't actually been disambiguated. However, with the caveat that we retain WP:PT format with it still in introductory line of the dab page (as MOS:DP does allow in cases, like this, were an alternative-case title redirects to the dab page). Llew Mawr (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Friendly Fire also does this. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 19:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.