Bite the Bullet

The expression "Bite the Bullet” used today means to go through the pain (physical or mental) and get on with it. 

In the 19th century, it could literally mean to bite a bullet. At the time, there was no such thing as pain relief or anesthesia when soldiers were injured on the battlefield and needed surgery, including amputations. They might be given an alcoholic drink but they were given a bullet to bite down on to prevent them from screaming out loud.

Of course, it didn't need to be a bullet - a piece of wood or leather strap would work too - but bullets were readily available. 

"Biting the bullet" is a metaphor used to describe a situation, often a debate, where one accepts an inevitable impending hardship or hard-to-refute point, and then endures the resulting pain with fortitude.

The phrase "bite on the bullet"That was first recorded by Rudyard Kipling in his 1891 novel The Light That Failed.

Evidence for biting an actual bullet rather than something perhaps safer and less likely to be swallowed is sparse. It is said that Harriet Tubman related having once assisted in a Civil War amputation in which the patient was given a bullet to bite down on.

Another origin story is that it evolved from the British expression "to bite the cartridge", which dates to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, but the phrase "chew a bullet", with a similar meaning, dates to at least 1796.

Modern audiences need to recognize that in the era of the origin of this phrase bullets were typically made of lead, a very soft metal, and would have been independent of any charge or cartridge.

Humble Pie

“Eating Humble Pie” is an expression that means to be submissive or apologetic. Its origin goes as far back as the 17th century. The lord of an estate would give the umbles (the less tasty parts of an animal) to his servants. "Umbles" in Middle English was derived from the word numble (after the Middle French nombles), meaning "deer's innards." Typically, they were made into a pie. This became associated with a lower social status.

I knew the phrase more as the name of a rock band.

1970 album

Humble Pie is an English rock band formed by singer-guitarists Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott in 1969. Often regarded as one of the first supergroups in music, Humble Pie experienced moderate popularity and commercial success during the 1970s with hit songs such as "Black Coffee", "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "Natural Born Bugie" among others.

The original line-up of members featured lead singer/frontman and guitarist Steve Marriott of Small Faces, singer-guitarist Peter Frampton of the Herd, former Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley from the Apostolic Intervention.

Having been instantly labeled by the UK music press as a supergroup, the band chose Humble Pie in order to downplay such expectations.

Their debut album, As Safe as Yesterday Is, was released in August 1969, along with the single, "Natural Born Bugie"/"Wrist Job", which reached No. 4 hit in the UK Singles Chart. It is one of the first albums to be described by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine. I always thought of them as being more "hard rock" than metal, but I'm not a critic. 

On 9 July 1971 Humble Pie opened for Grand Funk Railroad at their historic Shea Stadium concert, an event that broke the Beatles record for fastest-selling stadium concert, to that date. 

That year, Humble Pie released their most successful record to date, Rock On, as well as a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled Performance Rockin' the Fillmore. The live album was certified gold by the RIAA. "I Don't Need No Doctor" became an FM radio standard in the US, peaking at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelling the album up the charts. 

By the time of the album's release, Peter Frampton had left the band and went on to considerable success as a solo artist. His live recording Frampton Comes Alive! (1976), had several hit singles, and has earned 8× Platinum by the RIAA in the United States.

The band went through many lineup changes. Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991. The band continued to tour and record and during 2018 Jerry Shirley (who still owned the Humble Pie name) created a new lineup that he would direct but not tour with and as of 2023 Shirley's "Humble Pie Legacy" lineup of Dave Colwell (guitar), Jim Stapley (vocals, guitar, Hammond, harmonica), Ivan Bodley (bass) and Bobby Marks (drums) were still actively touring.

Arctic and Antarctica

The Arctic Circle currently at roughly 66° north of the Equator,

defines the boundary of the Arctic seas and lands CC BY 3.0, Link

We know the "top of the world" - the northernmost area of the Earth - as that frozen area known as the Arctic. The name comes from an ancient Greek word. 

Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός (arktikos), "near the Bear, northern" and from the word ἄρκτος (arktos), meaning bear. It has nothing to do with the Polar Bears found there but refers either to the constellation known as Ursa Major, the "Great Bear", which is prominent in the northern portion of the celestial sphere, or to the constellation Ursa Minor, the "Little Bear", which contains the celestial north pole (currently very near Polaris, the current north Pole Star, or North Star).

Ursa Major and Minor are constellations visible only in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ursa Major as depicted in Urania's Mirror,
a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

Antarctica is etymologically believed to be the land “of no Bear,” however, the Greek is actually “άντιάρκτικός” which translates to “opposite of the Bear.”

People often forget that Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. It is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe. It is mostly covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).

The modern name given to the continent originates from the word antarctic, which comes from Middle French antartique or antarctique ('opposite to the Arctic') and, in turn, the Latin antarcticus ('opposite to the north') which is derived from the Greek.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in Meteorology about an "Antarctic region" in c. 350 BCE, and the Greek geographer Marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his world map from the second century CE. (The map is now lost.) The Roman authors Gaius Julius Hyginus and Apuleius used for the South Pole the romanized Greek name polus antarcticus, from which derived the Old French pole antartike (modern pôle antarctique) attested in 1270, and from there the Middle English pol antartik, found first in a treatise written by the English author Geoffrey Chaucer.