What are your pet peeves re English usage?

can't find it in my 1971 OED - it's one of those isssues with micro-print and i had to do a lot of squinting .

Maybe it was, and then we forgot all about it because it sounds so silly, until this recent import from the USA.

"My fire is bigger than your fire"
-"Oh yeah? Well my fire's hotter!"
"Sez who?"
-"You want to make something of it?"

The term may well be of British origin, but that doesn't mean it might not have become more common in the US than in the UK. And why the Boer War? I seem to recall that the US fought a very brief war against Spain in 1898. (Although, in all fairness, I've never heard the unpleasantness at San Juan Hill referred to as a 'firefight.')

Yes, we certainly did fight briefly in Cuba in 1898, and fought the Spanish briefly in the Philippine Islands in 1898--and thereafter fought the Filipinos themselves for quite a while longer. However, the first attribution which i found read 1899, and the second 1895-1900, which was sufficiently vauge. I was simply referring to the first attribution, which would suggest the Boer War.

If one considers what most of the action of the Boer War was like, though, it becomes an even more plausible candidate. There was very little of set-piece battles in that war, especially after the siege of Ladysmith was lifted. Until the British began to gather Boer women and children into concentration camps, which broke the back of Boer resistance, the commonest form of combat was raids by Commonwealth forces to attempt to neutralize or capture Boer kommandos, or raids by Boer kommandos against Commwealth forces, and in particular railways and supply depots. I could see where a distinction between firefights and what was then seen as the more conventional style of warfare with artillery support would be made.

Ironically, though, the closest thing to a firefight which American forces ever engaged in in the Spanish war was the assault on Santiago de Cuba (then the capital of colonial Cuba), which entailed gaining the heights of Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill, fights in which there was no reliance upon artillery, and which took place to far inland to rely upon the fire of American naval rifles.

I don't know, of course, the origin of the word. I do consider McT's objection silly, though.

Mine was sold to me very cheap in Delhi in 1974 because I'd been working for OUP, but it did come with a magnifying glass.

Doubtful etymology?

I read last night in a trashy novel that the "sticks" of the expression "out in the sticks" is a reference to the bare tops of the masts above the sails.

This is artistic, but is it accurate?

Sounds pretty iffy to me . . . if one were able to see the unrigged masts of ships, one would certainly be near some degree of civilization. There's no profit in a plurality of ships coming to anchor in an uninhabited or a sparsely inhabited area.

From The Online Etymology Dictionary:



According to Wikipedia:



I highly recommend either bookmarking that site's home page, or (as i do) just remembering that it is out there. That's "etymonline-dot-com."

You are wrong again, Setanta, but I have to applaud your efforts.

Pulling up crap from the internet is weak indeed.

I seek spontaneity.

<waits, as usual>

The idea was more "up in the sticks" than "out in the sticks", the top of the masts being one of the few places for privacy on a sailing ship.

Trees as "sticks" is much more plausible.

This site suggests a British origin--although I think the expression has an American city slicker flavor.

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/out+in+the+sticks.html

That looks to be an interesting site, Noddy, and i'm glad you linked it here. It does, however, suffer from the deficiency which plagues all of the online etymological sites which i have run across--which is that they don't give usage citations for the derivations of terms. If you are familiar with the OED (which i suspect you are), you will know that the earliest known examples of a usage are cited immediately after the definition. I suppose one could describe that as a lack of depth in the etymologies provided online.

By the way, your source remains suspect to me. I have a life-long interest in naval history and fiction, and especially in the era of sail. I've never heard an expression such as "up in the sticks," which is certainly not a conclusive objection, but i do find it suspect, especially as you refer to the source as "a trashy novel." The terms for climbing the rigging with which i am familiar are "to go aloft" and "to lay aloft." I am familiar with an occasional reference to the masts as "trees," but never as sticks, nor have i ever read the term applied to any of the spars and yards which are rigged aboard ship.

As i say, that don't mean it ain't so, but i still, personally, find it suspect.

Set--

Etymology is full of poetic, spurious explanations of words and idioms.

Etymology sites have to devote a great deal of time to debunking.

I suspected that you would know a great deal about ships' rigging--and conversations about ships' rigging.

Oh, you do, eh? Well, I didn't get where I am today by not being a little silly sometimes.



As for the phrase "out in the sticks", I have always assumed it was to do with the countryside, among the trees, in the sense of backwoods, somewhere remote.

Hey Set, we have just returned from sailing from Oslo to Rouen on the good ship Christian Radich, which was wonderful.

This link gives some details of the festival of the sea held at Rouen this week.

http://www.armada.org/

What a beautiful ship!

Seems the Raddish is a hot little number.

Was there much of

battening down hatches?
splicing main brace
"left hand down a bit number one!"

but now sans hamacs eh?

very nice McT...

I hate this one. This was a peeve of mine about four years ago, but you've probably all forgotten that by now, and I heard it again recently on the wireless.

"Deep cuts". As in, "the military are being forced to make deep cuts in their spending."

What is the logic of using "deep" there as an intensifier? Surely the metaphor is for cutting something off, not cutting deeply?

Stupid neologistic herd-following cloth-eared illogical bastards.