Hazel, yer shekels will be well spent. It is =superior= fictioneering.

You're right. Great book.:p

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.

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.

Those of you who live in or near NYC can make an excursion to the New York Hyster . . . er . . . Historical Society, and see bullets from the Revolutionary War era . . . bullets with teeth marks in them.

Ken V.