10 ms·

I don't understand your "spike this deal" idiom. I can't make sense of an analogy to a spiked drink (rufie) or spiked football (scoring a point). The closest I

by pydave 13y ago

I don't understand your "spike this deal" idiom. I can't make sense of an analogy to a spiked drink (rufie) or spiked football (scoring a point). The closest I can find is "spike somebody's guns" meaning "to spoil someone's plans". Do you mean someone wanted to prevent you from using RSA's patent in the JVM? (I initially assumed you meant "force this deal".)

saurik 13y ago
(Searching for "spike this deal" finds two kinds of usages: people making a play on words in advertisements for volleyball and football products, and people talking about ruining a deal on purpose.)
wavefunction 13y ago
The historical reference is to putting a spike in an enemy's cannon barrel, which should render any attempts to use the cannon to catastrophically fail, as cannons generally had to be well-cast/flawless to operate under their loads.
tod222 13y ago
verb: spike; 1. impale on or pierce with a sharp point. (of a newspaper editor) reject (a story) by or as if by filing it on a spike. "the editors deemed the article in bad taste and spiked it" stop the progress of (a plan or undertaking); put an end to. "he doubted they would spike the entire effort over this one negotiation" historical: render (a gun) useless by plugging up the vent with a spike. From https://www.google.com/#q=define+spike https://www.google.com/#q=define+spike
dingaling 13y ago
The etymology is indeed 'spike the guns'. Usually spiking was done to prevent the enemy from seizing and using one's own ordnance, rather than an act of sabotage by the enemy. The 'spike' was a nail driven into the barrel, usually perpendicular to the bore. As a Cold War aside: an AP round from the A-10's GAU-8 cannon could actually spike the barrel of a T-62 tank! But whilst this was demonstrated in controlled environments it wasn't really a practical form of attack...
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  To spike a gun seems to be a rare event. Gun crews could spike a gun to prevent it being turned on their own forces, but it meant they could not reuse it either when the cavalry left (which usually meant your whole army was running away) Cavalry were supposed to carry such equipment but it seems it was rare they did, and rarer they got down off a horse in the middle of a firefight. So it's (from a minor bit of googling) looking like a tactic more honoured in the breach than the observance. Anyone else? An interesting HN-like back and forth on this subject is below: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=233539 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=233539 Oh and it's driving a steel wedge into the touch hole so the cannon cannot be fired - not, as seems to be implied on this amazingly tangential thread, driven into ridiculously hardened cannon walls.
  - grogenaut 13y ago
    Or you know a bit of thermite on the breech block works well.
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      I'm pretty sure thermite was in enter after cavalry charges stopped being a good idea (well actually as Poland infamously charged Nazi tanks, maybe not)
  - arca_vorago 13y ago
    In the modern context it is standard protocol to not leave important equipment in a functioning state. So, lets say you got ambushed and there was no chance of getting a tow truck in time before being overrun, for example, you would toss a thermate incendiary on top of the radios and one on top of the engine, thus denying the enemy the use of the vehicle or the knowledge of the radio mechanisms or encryptions on it.
lmm 13y ago
In British english it's fairly standard; my first analogy-thought is to spiking a news story.
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  Does one not 'spike the football' in the NFL to stop the clock?
  - mbetter 13y ago
    This kills the football.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Sorry, it means to 'deny successful execution of the plan'. Originally spiking gun barrels a modern example was environmentalists driving spikes into old growth redwood trees that would cause massive damage to a chain saw blade should a logger try to harvest tree. Generally doing something which prevents a deal from actually working to make up for the fact that you were unsuccessful in preventing the deal from being agreed to in the first place.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Let's get our terms right. Tree-spikers are not environmentalists, they are vicious extremists. They are terrorists. The spikes don't just damage saw blades, they send sharp steel shards flying in all directions with the intent to to seriously injure or kill loggers or sawmill workers.
  - sounds 13y ago
    I can only say that I stopped at "they are terrorists."
  - xj9 13y ago
    Everyone is a terrorist.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    No argument on substance; someone who has no problem maiming or murdering in order, not even to save the life of a tree, but merely to punish people for having in some way been associated with a tree's demise, so places himself far beyond any civilized pale. Such a person deserves at the very least a stiff term in prison; should he succeed in his vile endeavor, he is best rewarded with a cigarette, if he wants one, and a nice sunny place to stand and enjoy it. (In case that's not sufficiently clear, I am talking about execution by firing squad.) But you might want to avoid that word 'terrorist'. It tends to give people an excuse to shut off their brains and feel good about it, where convoluted rhetoric like mine tends to serve as an attractive nuisance ("I could give up on this, but then whoever wrote it might look smarter than me") for long enough to get a point across.
derleth 13y ago
> rufie Roofie? Or something else?
Angostura 13y ago
It's presumably a variant on the historic journalistic use of 'spike a story' where the editor would decide not to run a story, and the typewritten manuscript was places on a metal spike.
fit2rule 13y ago
With what do you kill the undead? A wooden spike.

by pydave 13y ago

saurik 13y ago

(Searching for "spike this deal" finds two kinds of usages: people making a play on words in advertisements for volleyball and football products, and people talking about ruining a deal on purpose.)

wavefunction 13y ago

The historical reference is to putting a spike in an enemy's cannon barrel, which should render any attempts to use the cannon to catastrophically fail, as cannons generally had to be well-cast/flawless to operate under their loads.

tod222 13y ago

verb: spike; 1. impale on or pierce with a sharp point. (of a newspaper editor) reject (a story) by or as if by filing it on a spike. "the editors deemed the article in bad taste and spiked it" stop the progress of (a plan or undertaking); put an end to. "he doubted they would spike the entire effort over this one negotiation" historical: render (a gun) useless by plugging up the vent with a spike. From https://www.google.com/#q=define+spike https://www.google.com/#q=define+spike

dingaling 13y ago

The etymology is indeed 'spike the guns'. Usually spiking was done to prevent the enemy from seizing and using one's own ordnance, rather than an act of sabotage by the enemy. The 'spike' was a nail driven into the barrel, usually perpendicular to the bore. As a Cold War aside: an AP round from the A-10's GAU-8 cannon could actually spike the barrel of a T-62 tank! But whilst this was demonstrated in controlled environments it wasn't really a practical form of attack...

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
To spike a gun seems to be a rare event. Gun crews could spike a gun to prevent it being turned on their own forces, but it meant they could not reuse it either when the cavalry left (which usually meant your whole army was running away) Cavalry were supposed to carry such equipment but it seems it was rare they did, and rarer they got down off a horse in the middle of a firefight. So it's (from a minor bit of googling) looking like a tactic more honoured in the breach than the observance. Anyone else? An interesting HN-like back and forth on this subject is below: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=233539 http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=233539 Oh and it's driving a steel wedge into the touch hole so the cannon cannot be fired - not, as seems to be implied on this amazingly tangential thread, driven into ridiculously hardened cannon walls.
- grogenaut 13y ago
  Or you know a bit of thermite on the breech block works well.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure thermite was in enter after cavalry charges stopped being a good idea (well actually as Poland infamously charged Nazi tanks, maybe not)
- arca_vorago 13y ago
  In the modern context it is standard protocol to not leave important equipment in a functioning state. So, lets say you got ambushed and there was no chance of getting a tow truck in time before being overrun, for example, you would toss a thermate incendiary on top of the radios and one on top of the engine, thus denying the enemy the use of the vehicle or the knowledge of the radio mechanisms or encryptions on it.

lmm 13y ago

In British english it's fairly standard; my first analogy-thought is to spiking a news story.

selimthegrim 13y ago
Does one not 'spike the football' in the NFL to stop the clock?
- mbetter 13y ago
  This kills the football.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Sorry, it means to 'deny successful execution of the plan'. Originally spiking gun barrels a modern example was environmentalists driving spikes into old growth redwood trees that would cause massive damage to a chain saw blade should a logger try to harvest tree. Generally doing something which prevents a deal from actually working to make up for the fact that you were unsuccessful in preventing the deal from being agreed to in the first place.

ams6110 13y ago
Let's get our terms right. Tree-spikers are not environmentalists, they are vicious extremists. They are terrorists. The spikes don't just damage saw blades, they send sharp steel shards flying in all directions with the intent to to seriously injure or kill loggers or sawmill workers.
- sounds 13y ago
  I can only say that I stopped at "they are terrorists."
- xj9 13y ago
  Everyone is a terrorist.
- aaronem 13y ago
  No argument on substance; someone who has no problem maiming or murdering in order, not even to save the life of a tree, but merely to punish people for having in some way been associated with a tree's demise, so places himself far beyond any civilized pale. Such a person deserves at the very least a stiff term in prison; should he succeed in his vile endeavor, he is best rewarded with a cigarette, if he wants one, and a nice sunny place to stand and enjoy it. (In case that's not sufficiently clear, I am talking about execution by firing squad.) But you might want to avoid that word 'terrorist'. It tends to give people an excuse to shut off their brains and feel good about it, where convoluted rhetoric like mine tends to serve as an attractive nuisance ("I could give up on this, but then whoever wrote it might look smarter than me") for long enough to get a point across.

derleth 13y ago

> rufie Roofie? Or something else?

Angostura 13y ago

It's presumably a variant on the historic journalistic use of 'spike a story' where the editor would decide not to run a story, and the typewritten manuscript was places on a metal spike.

fit2rule 13y ago

With what do you kill the undead? A wooden spike.