"Sod this for a game of soldiers" from Welsh Revolt

[Dactyl]

Someone on another forum has claimed the following:

Owain Glyndwr's army eventually got starved, gave up and went home. It's the origin of the phrase "sod this for a game of soldiers".

This, of course, sent my BS sense a-tingling, however, my Google-fu is failing me.

[Jay Tea]

Unlikely, given that Owain Glyndwr pre-dates the use of the word 'sod' as even an insult by 400 years. I would hazard it's mid to late 20th century.

[musicgeek]

One possibility

Another source

[Richard W]

Nigel Rees in A Word In Your Shell-Like basically says the "game of soldiers" part is of unknown origin ("... quite what is meant by a 'game of soldiers' in either version of the expression is not totally clear", then some speculation about toy soldiers or "army games"). He then says "Perhaps none of these date from before the Second World War" - if there was any evidence of the phrase being used much before that, I'd have thought he'd know about it. The other phrases he refers to are variants like "bugger this for..." and "f*ck this for...".

Musicgeek's first link only goes to the cover of Cassell's Dictionary of Word And Phrase Origins, for me, but I notice that that's also written by Nigel Rees so I'm guessing the information will be similar.

The other book I usually use is The Cassell Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green, but I couldn't find it in there. (Although I did notice that clicking the Search button on musicgeek's link brought up a different book by Jonathon Green. I guess he and Nigel Rees have the market sewn up...)

Without context, I'd have read the OP claim as a joke, anyway.

[Chloe]

Woudn't they have said it in Welsh?

[Dactyl]

Originally Posted by Chloe

Woudn't they have said it in Welsh?

That did cross my mind but Wales was already under English rule by then and some harsh acts had been passed by Westminster to subjugate Welsh culture. Also a number of Welsh soldiers in the conflict joined from the British Army meaning it's very likely they spoke English, even if not as their first language.

Dac "My Hen laid a haddock" tyl

[Tarquin Farquart]

I'm sure Shakespeare would have mentioned this had it happened.

[Tarquin Farquart]

I thought this would be about some new computer game called Welsh Revolt, that, erm... wasn't very good.

[Chloe]

Originally Posted by Dactyl

That did cross my mind but Wales was already under English rule by then and some harsh acts had been passed by Westminster to subjugate Welsh culture. Also a number of Welsh soldiers in the conflict joined from the British Army meaning it's very likely they spoke English, even if not as their first language.

Dac "My Hen laid a haddock" tyl

True, but not when English people are in the room.