"Biting the big one"

[Wilson Gray]

I was in the Army in the late 'Fifties and early 'Sixties and am,
age-wise, in my early seventies, so I do predate you by a few years.
I've never heard "That bites the big one" outside of the military,
but, of course, I've neither been everywhere nor spoken to everyone.

-Wilson

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Biting the big one"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> HDAS has "bite the big one" as student slang ("esp. juvenile", early cites mainly from student sources), with citations from 1977. I never particularly associated the phrase with the military. (I served in the '80s.) That's not to say, of course, that the term wasn't in earlier use in the military.
>
> And I don't think that it has come to mean specifically to die. It still means a very unfortunate occurrence. In some contexts this could involve death, but not necessarily so.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 8:07 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Biting the big one"
>
> Heard on a re-run of The Simpsons:
>
> "... where [the character] Martin [Prince] _bit the big one_."
>
> According to the story line, Martin is dead. Hence, "... where Martin
> _bit the big one_" clearly means ".. where Martin _died_."
>
>
> Some may recall that, a while back, I posted about misunderstanding an
> email from a niece in which she stated that "... our small computer
> _bit the big one_."
>
> In what sense did the small computer bite the big computer? Damned if
> I could figure it out. Then, I recalled an old bit of Army slang that
> I probably hadn't heard in around half a century: "That bites the big
> one!" But there were some problems: 1) the phrase was never used in
> the past tense; 2) "That" was always some abstraction, not anything
> that, even in a cartoon, could be portrayed as biting anything; 3)
> "bites" was understood to mean the consequence of having "the big one"
> shoved into one's mouth, i.e. "forced to suck" and not literally to
> "bite"; 4) "the big one" was understood to be The Green Wienie, the
> metaphorical penis of the U.S. Army.
>
> The phrase's meaning was understood to be something like, "An
> undesirable situation has arisen over which one has no control."
>
> But, of course, that still didn't clarify the niece's meaning for me.
>
> OTOH, if I had kept up with all the episodes of The Simpsons, I might
> have understood that, on civvy street, "bite the big one" means "die"
> and is not the same as the old military "That," e.g. be unexpectedly
> assigned to guard duty - a Navy-style detail: four hours on, four
> hours off, over a period of 24 hours - during the middle 24 hours of
> what had been a three-day pass, "bites the big one!"
>
> As a WAG, perhaps the phrase wasn't used in the past because, once one
> had taken the meat, taken gas, taken ass, complaining about later it
> was pointless. There was always more than enough in the present to
> complain about. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
>
> A [reading duty roster]: WTF?! "I've got guard duty! There goes my
> three-day pass!'
>
> B.: "Yeah. That bites the big one!"
>
> Would the next move be to pull a Farley?
>
> A. "Hey, you remember that time when I had a three-day pass, but then
> I got guard duty?"
>
> B. "Yeah. That bit the big one." "No. But it must have bitten the big one."
>
> Sounds unlikely.
>
> B would be more likely to say: "Yeah. What about it?"
>
> Yet, it seems to me that "bites" in phrases like, "Reality bites!" is
> ultimately derived from the military phrase. I don't feel much
> difference between "Reality bites" and "Reality," e.g. guard duty,
> "bites the big one," Well, "Reality bites!" probably is meant to
> describe the expected, whereas "That bites the big one!" was a
> reaction to the unexpected. "The Army sucks" is probably closer to
> "Reality bites" in meaning.
>
> -Wilson
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
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>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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