Jan 7, 2010

Russian Roulette for Kids

How did we miss this before Christmas?





So the question: is Russian roulette really Russian?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term first appeared in a short story published in Collier’s Magazine (1937) by Georges Surdez.

“…did you ever hear of Russian Roulette?’ When I said I had not, he told me all about it. When he was with the Russian army in Rumania, around 1917, and things were cracking up, so that their officers felt that they were not only losing prestige, money, family, and country, but were being also dishonored before their colleagues of the allied armies, some officer would suddenly pull out his revolver, anywhere, at the table, in a cafĂ©, at a gathering of friends, remove a cartridge from the cylinder, spin the cylinder, snap it back in place, put it to his head, and pull the trigger.”
Not that it’s going to stop us from posting about it.

Special thanks to sommerfugls selvmord!

1 comment:

Marjorie said...

This can't really have effect, I think like this.