Fiction_L Archives Quote source question Dates: 11/1/99,9:22 AM  through  11/1/99,10:45 AM  (4 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to October 1999 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: <[removed]@orion.mtgr.mtlib.org>
REC'D: 11/1/99, 9:22 AM

I am going to "play patron" and ask a question.

Does anyone know where the source of the quote "Baptism by fire" or
"Baptism under fire" originate? I am referring to the idea of soldiers
receiving their initiation into that group that has been subjected to
combat. Sort of like the Civil War soldiers "seeing the elephant."

I have searched Bartlett's, Roget's, and all the quotation books my library
owns. But I cannot find a source; none even mention it.

This is solely for my own curiosity; I'm just hoping someone might have
*the answer*. Thanks.

(I know it appears in a Dire Straits song "Brothers in Arms" but think it
orginated much earlier than that.)

BYE!

Marla/Great Falls Public Library/Acquisitions
301 2nd Ave N
Great Falls, MT 59401-2593
[removed]@orion.mtgr.mtlib.org

FROM: "Karen A.K. Keller" <[removed]@tln.lib.mi.us>
REC'D: 11/1/99, 10:07 AM

On Mon, 1 Nov 1999 [removed]@orion.mtgr.mtlib.org wrote:

> Does anyone know where the source of the quote "Baptism by fire" or
> "Baptism under fire" originate? I am referring to the idea of soldiers
>
"A soldier's introduction to battle or any battler's introduction to the
fray. The term also once meant martyrdom by fire for the experience of
any severe ordeal. Cassell's Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1902 supplement)
says: 'When during the Franco-German war of 1870, Prince Louis Napoleon...
was first exposed, by direction of his Father, Napoleon III, and with his
own consent, to the fire of the enemy at Saarbruck, the event was called a
'baptism of fire.' (The French is bapteme de feu.)" From the "Dictionary
of Cliches" by James Rogers.


Karen Keller
Brighton (MI) District Library

FROM: <[removed]@orion.mtgr.mtlib.org>
REC'D: 11/1/99, 10:28 AM

Boy, what a speedy answer, Karen! Thank you very much. Now I can sleep
nights! ;-) BYE!

Marla/Great Falls Public Library/Acquisitions
301 2nd Ave n
Great Falls, MT 59401-592
[removed]@orion.mtgr.mtlib.org

FROM: "Susan LaBelle" <[removed]@metronet.lib.mi.us>
REC'D: 11/1/99, 10:45 AM

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says "baptism of fire is really
martyrdom, but the phrase was misapplied by Napoleon III to one who went
under fire in battle for the first time"

Susan LaBelle, Librarian
Adult Reading
Baldwin Public Library
Birmingham, Michigan

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