Idiom "sweat bullets"-----influence of German?

[Sam Clements]

A NewspaperArchive cite from 1936 is available.  So that takes out the
probability of a US soldier from WWII.

Sam Clements


----- Original Message -----
From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>

>     English has an interesting idiom: "sweat bullets."  Jonathon Green's
> _Cassell's Dictionary of Slang_ says: "[1950s+] (U.S.) 1. to worry
> excessively, to be terrified. 2. to work very hard."  ---- I'm familiar
> only with the first meaning, although I'd prefer to substitute
> "exceedingly" for "excessively," and I'm not sure that "to be terrified"
> is entirely appropriate.  One needs time to start sweating bullets (e.g.
> the perpetrator of a crime waiting to be be grilled by very tough
> detectives.)
>
>     What particularly interests me here, however, are the questions: Why
> bullets?  How does one even figuratively sweat bullets? I believe there
> *is* no way to figuratively sweat bullets.  But note the parallel
> expression in German,"Blut schwitzen"  (= to sweat blood) and its longer
> variant "Blut und Wasser schwitzen" (= to sweat blood and water).
>
>    Perhaps the German expression was altered by Americans, who
> misinterpreted "Blut" as "bullet" (or perhaps made this alteration
> humorously).  If "sweat bullets" really did arise as late as the 1950s in
> the U.S., perhaps it was U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany who heard
> "Blut (und Wasser) schwitzen" and Americanized the idiom to "sweat
> bullets."  And, of course, as soldiers they'd very much have bullets on
> their mind.
>
>     Does all this sound plausible?  Or am I overlooking a better
> interpretation?
>
> Gerald Cohen
> P.S. The German expression "Blut schwitzen" evidently derives from the
> folk belief that the hippopotamus sweats blood.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org