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What a great read! The language is a bit bumpy at times, but it was published over 50 years ago. What does 'BB' mean?
by CamelCaseName 10y ago
What a great read! The language is a bit bumpy at times, but it was published over 50 years ago.
What does 'BB' mean?
- Terr_ 10y agoThere's an English idiom "sweating bullets" [0] which refers to a state of panic or dread, possibly with the image that droplets of sweat are being forced out at speed. I believe the author is replacing "bullets" with "BBs" [1] to fit the youthful 21-year-old protagonist. BBs are a much tamer kind of spherical projectile popularized by a variety of teen-toys. The actual origin of "BB" goes back to serious guns again, as a defined size of metal buckshot pellets. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sweat_bullets https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sweat_bullets [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun
- CamelCaseName 10y agoAhh, excellent explanation, thank you!
- ep103 10y agoI assumed it meant he was sweating bullets. Like little shots from a bb gun