Bostondevil wrote:Dude, I know you're the historian and all, but weren't they doing that in the Revolutionary War as well? I'm pretty sure I've seen a bitten bullet from Revolutionary War days in a museum somewhere. Maybe the practice preceeded the common use of the phrase.
Technically, there were very few bullets in the Revolutionary War. The prevalence of rifles in that conflict has been wildly overstated over the years, to the point that the legend of the American "rifleman" is almost pure fabrication. Musket balls were far more commonplace, but due to their shape, would not have functioned in this capacity as well as a bullet. Furthermore, military personnel at the time, from the highest general to the lowliest militiaman, would have understood and appreciated the considerable difference between a bullet and a musket ball. It's certainly possible (perhaps probable) that some soldiers "bit the bullet" during the American Revolution, but the equipment simply was not in wide enough use for that phrase to have likely been in wide circulation at the time. Not until the end of the Civil War did most enlisted men possess rifles rather than muskets.
Bostondevil wrote:Other theater superstitions, did you know whistling backstage is considered back luck? In the days before headsets, technical crew workers would communicate cues to one another by whistling. If the actors were whistling backstage it could interfere with the cues. The practice of using whistles to communicate has long been out of fashion. But it's still considered bad luck (and a major faux pas) to whistle backstage.
I did know that about whistling...I was taken to task for that very faux pas once upon a time.
Back in high school, we used to blithely wish each other "Good luck, Macbeth!" before a show (it's also bad luck to utter the name "Macbeth" in a theater).
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