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No, all big vacations got cancelled.te_fern wrote:BB52, did you say you're off for 2 weeks? Are you going somewhere fun??
https://english.stackexchange.com/quest ... -come-fromThis appears to have originated in the First World War, of which long, drawn-out trench warfare was a defining aspect, especially of the western front.
From a summary of Guy's Hospital Gazette (1914):
The best definition I have heard of modern warfare is, “Months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror."
From a snippet of The New York Times Current History of the European War (1915):
Since then we have been doing infantry work in the trenches. We have been out of work on our trenches; only shrapnel and snipers. Some one described this war as "Months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror." It is sad that it is such a bad country for cavalry. Cavalry work here against far superior forces of infantry, like we had the other day, is not good enough.
The same phrase was used of the First World War such as The Fight for the Future (1916) by Edward Arthur Burroughs (Bishop of Repon)
"Months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror" : such is a description of life in the Navy which a naval lieutenant quotes as exactly fitting the facts. And one could quote many letters giving a similar impression of life in the Army, as it affects the type of man I have in mind, though here the ingredients are apt to be mingled in very different proportions, and the "moments of terror" may be ...