Has anyone ever heard of this phrase--"I guess I'd better get on the stick." Where did it come from and why. I used it today in the context of not putting a task off any longer.

The best I can do...

Refering to action arising from being hit by a stick? (eg taking a stick to a mule?)

stales

Hi, c. Yes, that expression is used here. I sort of assumed it had something to do with the stick shift of a non-automatic car. [shrugging vaguely e]

Here's YART (No, not like you're thinking, this YART stands for Yet Another Random Theory):

On the stick refers to the control stick of aircraft. "Getting on the stick" means taking control of a situation, as in, "Hey, co-pilot, could you get on the stick for a minute. I need to use the head."

I think Flatlander is on to something... getting on the stick is something i associate with pilots too.. the control mechanism is a stick.. i drive stick. ( and have for 30 years--How could that be?) and know expression like 3 on the tree,for 3 forward gears, with the controls mounted on the steering wheel shaft, or 4 (or 5) on the floor for floor controlled shifting, but i don't associate getting on the stick with driving. -- but it also might be related to radios some how.. since nowdays getting on the stick is usually about communicating information.
ps. i learned to drive with 3 on the tree, went on to 4 on the floor, and now drive 5 on the floor.

The phrase "get on the stick" was common expression in WWII among GI's who would not knowingly have borrowed an AirForce expression. It was used like "get on the ball" which was of sports origin, meaning to start doing something important with vigor.

but, bill, the phrase may predate WWII; the air force was originally part of the army.

but. this is from the American-Australian Slang Dictionary (online):
get on the stick phrase. (from the early 1900s, referring to starting to move a car by putting it in gear with its gear-shift stick) Begin working
http://psy.otago.ac.nz:800/r_oshea/slang.html#G

<<The phrase "get on the stick" was common expression in WWII among GI's who would not knowingly have borrowed an AirForce expression.>>

This *is an interesting commentary on military culture in the United States. As an arugment against the aviation 'theory,' however, it is unconvincing.

re: "I learned to drive with 3 on the tree, went on to 4 on the floor, and now drive 5 on the floor".

One jump ahead of you H. Ditto for all the above, but recently sold the latest 5 speed and have started over...now getting around in a restored 1964 car with 3 on the tree. Funny thing you know, drive round in a $5,000 USD car (as i now do) and everybody wants to be your friend (remembering their youth, or Grandad's car etc). Drive round in a $50,000 USD car and everybody ignores you (or worse)!!!

Wish I could remember how to post a photo on MaxQ's site (or was it CapK's?) - I'd love y'all to see the old gal.

stales

Expecting to be ridiculed, another connection I believe may be relevant was the common sight of an ethnic entrepreneur who made his living by playing an accordion, with a monkey who on command would jump onto a stick, which was then pointed towards a potential donor, and the monkey would take off his little hat and hold it out to collect coins for his owner. So, "getting on the stick" was used to mean "start earning my keep." Laugh if you will, but I remember seeing them in Boston many times in the twenties.

Dearest Bill, no one is laughing at you or your post, Dear Heart. I think it's fascinating.

... you never know, though. someone out there might be ridiculing 'another connection.'

ridiculing 'another connection.'

Well, we wouldn't want to frustrate it.

Hey, you two! No fair tag-teaming him!

I wonder if it can be connected to marching - to the beat of the drumstick? No positive info, just a stray thought. Alternatively, derived from a Yiddish expression about schtick, as in going into sales patter?

Well, it is October, so I suppose getting on the stick could be flying across the moon in one's black threads...

This makes more sense to me than the other aviation suggestion since only smaller, or single seat aircraft have sticks (often called "Joysticks," no doubt for naughty reasons, since they're between the legs). Larger, and modern commercially produced small planes have wheels or yokes instead. There are a couple of ultra-modern airliners that have gone back to the stick, but it's side-mounted.

Could "get on the stick" conceivably be related, in some way I can't fathom, to "sticks" meaning an isolated rural area? (as in the famous Variety headline, "STICKS NIX HICKS PIX")

If not, what's the source for this meaning of "sticks"?

<<What is the source for this meaningof "sticks"?

"Living in the sticks," as I understand it, wouldn't mean living in a sod house on the Great Plains, but in a cabin in a wooded area. That is, "living in the sticks" is near to literal. It is interesting to me to the more general meaning of living in an isolated area--and it occurs to me I am hearing it from a prairie dweller. Hmm.

<<..have wheels...instead

Aren't the "[steering] wheels" in all aircraft called "sticks" no matter their ergonomic(?) design?

Even if they weren't, the inference you make would likely be flawed by anachronism since the expression probably still predates the modernized cockpit.

In any event, the notion of witches hopping on their broom sticks is certainly just as suggestive as the term "joy stick." ;)

Very interesting point, inselpeter. May depend on whether the phrase "in the sticks" originated before, or after, about 1860.

Until about the late 1850's, settlement of the midwest was largely confined to areas near rivers. On reason was that rivers provided transportation -- but a larger reason was that these were the more forested areas, with wood available to build houses, barns, fences, and so forth. After the late 1850's, the railroad network had developed widely enough to import lumber to much of the prairies, making settlement feasible there.

Edit: For anyone interested in the history and economic forces fueling Chicago's explosive growth during about 1850-1900, when it was easily the world's fastest-growing major city, I highly recommend Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, by William Cronon. The chapters on the grain, lumber and meat-packing industries are particularly readable, thoughtful and informative. The author has stunning scholarly credentials (Rhodes scholar; MacArthur fellow), and the book won prizes in the field of historical writing.

to import lumber to much of the prairies, making settlement feasible there.
But what about the sod houses?
Odd to think of this, but Kentucky was mostly prairie a couple of hundred years ago. Some areas have been re-planted with these types of grass seed.

Aren't the "[steering] wheels" in all aircraft called "sticks" no matter their ergonomic(?) design?

Not to any pilot I've ever known, but then I haven't been a pilot in quite a few years. The term, "yoke" seems to be used commonly, but the inference of forced labor (sub ugum) seems lost on those who use it.

As for the phallic interpretation of witches' broomsticks, I suggest that they may be swept away by the ecstacy of flight.

<<not to any pilot I've ever known, but then I haven't been a pilot in quite a few years.>>

I haven't been a pilot in quite a few years either, and I've never been completely comfortable calling those wheels "sticks," still..

This from online Websters:

: any of various implements resembling a stick in shape, origin, or use: as (1) : COMPOSING STICK (2) : an airplane lever operating the elevators and ailerons

Michael Pollan, in the book Botany of Desire devotes a chapter to marajauna, and suggets that the witches broomsticks and flying was from the use of dildos covered with a mixture of hashish and other botanicals. the mucus memebranes of the vagina would have absorbed many of the chemicals, and even today flying, or higher than a kite, and other phrases are used to describe drugs effects. but i don't think this has anything to do with getting on the stick.

but i don't think this has anything to do with getting on the stick.
au contraire, dear Helen; it suggests a connection that would be most interesting, if valld.
which may be the first time I've blushed on this board!

Oh, well done, Helen. You've managed to tie up Jackie's post about "reseeding" Kentucky nicely with marijuana so that we now have a bluegrass thread. And so, as Kurt Vonnegut would tell us, it goes ...

Ever see a steering wheel on a train? Growing up in Alabama it was of the utmost importance that the gangling young sons of the south understand the meaning and implications of the phrase "Get on the stick". It meant "Get moving! Now! And Fast!" The "stick" we understood to be the lever that gave leverage (sic) to close the valve to increase the pressure of the steam so that steam engines could gain speed. The engineer would lean forward on the heavy lever therefore "getting on the stick".


Please excuse my hasty departure. I wanted to get my post recorded before the quick wits among you did. Now I will go research my resources and uncover substantiation.

Please excuse my hasty departure. I wanted to get my post recorded ... Now I will go research my resources and uncover substantiation.

Ya gotta love this guy!

Blue grass: geez, CK! A point for that one!

"reseeding" Kentucky nicely with marijuana
Hemp actually thrives in KY. Here's a neat link on the history of the plant, and the laws concerning it:
http://thehia.org/history/history.htm

I've also heard it to mean 'get to work'.

In my mind, and this could be way off, I had associated it with the old stick/carrot method of getting a mule to work. If he doesn't go for the carrot hanging in front of him make him run from the stick hitting him from behind.

OK, so we seem to have the fact emerging that almost any human activity involving transport, from a donkey to a train or plane, seems to use a stick to control the speed...

I guess the general sense of "getting busy" may have no more specific origins than this confluence, then?