Talk:Petard

message: Quote:
Hamlet's actual meaning is "cause the bomb maker to be blown into the air with his own bomb," metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are killed instead of Hamlet.
Doesn't that mean roughly the same as a hangman being hung with his own rope?
:I have to second this observation, and was equally confused myself. Can anyone clarify what the major difference in usage is here? Mineralogy 08:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thirded. I really can't see the difference.
With Shakespeare's fondness for double entendre and dirty jokes, and the entymology of the word as given in the article, it suggests to me that Willie might have meant neither rope nor bomb, but something more flat(ulent).--Buckboard 02:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I'm not actually saying to remove it, but I find it more than a little ironic to have a spoiler warning for a pop culture play written 400 years ago. --Kaz 06:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoiler? 

message: Now that the British Library has images of the original quartos online, we can read the early texts for ourselves. In the fifth quarto (1637, Garrick), on page 65 we do find "For ’tis the sport, to have the Enginer / Hoist with his owne petar, an’t shall goe hard …". This passage is apparently not yet found in the first quarto (1603, Halliwell–Phillipps).
In any event, the word is famous because of Hamlet, and yet the article has no reference section, nor even a precise citation of Hamlet, Act III, scene 4 (final speech in scene). --KSmrqT 19:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: I removed the "Hoisted by his own retard" section. A claim of "entering pop culture" needs more clear support than a pun made in an article. Pjbflynn 16:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retard 

message: The OED (CD, v3) disagrees with hoist being the past participle of hoise. It has been in use since 1548 (54 years before Hamlet) as "hoi[h]sted". Also, Shakespeare uses the same word as present tense in 1606 in Anthony & Cleopatra ("Let him take thee, And hoist thee vp to the shouting Plebeians"). I'm diking out the sentence describing this as past tense and duplicating it here. If anyone disagrees, they can reinsert it :
:The verb "hoist" is an irregular past tense of the verb "hoise", meaning "raise" or "lift". The same form is used in "burn" and "burnt".
86.31.121.186 01:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hoist 

message: "Etymology: Middle French, from peter, to break wind". Actually the word "pétard" exists in french (and nowadays means "firecracker") so the word almost certainly comes from the french "pétard", which itself was based on "péter" ("to fart", to be exact, but also slang for "to burst", "break", in today's french). As it is now, the article may lead one to believe "petard" was invented as an english word, ie, by the english, which it wasn't. Onaryc 17:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: Really? I don't think so 128.86.168.207 (talk) 10:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medieval 

message: The neutrality of the section on Maltese petards can be disputed Maltesedog (talk) 19:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: While I suspect that that the veracity of the comments may easily be confirmed, I do agree that they are not appropriate to what is, essentially, an etymological note. I will remove them. Malta seems to have a close relationship with gunpowder, was it not also the home of the fougasse (weapon)? Gaius Cornelius (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maltese petards 

message: What an impressive array of ways to avoid using the word fart!
80.7.16.160 (talk) 23:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Euphemism 

message: *Recommended Change This line "but a straight line is rarely the safest route of departure while under fire" either needs a citation or needs removed altogether.  I can say this to completely blow that sentence out of the water "the fastest way to get behind cover and out of the line of fire is a straight line".  I know this because I have a military background and we were told that running in a "zig-zag" route takes too much time and rarely works.  Thoughts?  Huey2323 (talk) 01:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hoist section edit 

message: The article cites the petard as "a rather primitive and exceedingly dangerous explosive device". It's not at all clear whether this is dangerous to the user or dangerous to the target. Either way, it should be made clear. -- Dan Griscom (talk) 02:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems clear enough. A petard is obviously dangerous, by design. However the unreliable and unpredictable burning rate of such early fuses meant that they could easily explode prematurely when being put in place. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dangerous, but to whom?