What's it mean?

This morning we had a pondering.  We were watching a show and the term 'stick it with a stick' was used.  Frankie immediately went into questioning mode and needed to know what the heck that meant. 

Of course, she could only visualize 'sticks'...like from a tree branch, and so could only picture somebody using a stick to stick a stick.  Oh dear...how was I going to 'splane' this.

I went on line thinking I would be able to come up with some easy to understand explanation, but not so.  I could not find 'stick it with a stick'.  So, I thought perhaps a good old big book, might have various definitions for 'stick'. 

And finally, waaaaaay down the page on Google's Dictionary.com I found the following:

Stick² /stɪk/ Show Spelled [stik] Show IPA verb, stuck, stick·ing, noun

verb (used with object)

1.

to pierce or puncture with something pointed, as a pin, dagger, or spear; stab: to stick one's finger with a needle.

2.

to kill by this means: to stick a pig.

3.

to thrust (something pointed) in, into, through, etc.: to stick a needle into a pincushion.

4.

to fasten in position by thrusting a point or end into something: to stick a peg in a pegboard.

5.

to fasten in position by or as if by something thrust through: to stick a painting on the wall.

 

Frankie was not impressed, she seemed stuck on the stick thing.

 

I guess she could not envision a stick doing a heck of a lot of damage.

 

I pointed out if the stick had been whittled down to a sharp point it could indeed do quite a bit of damage. 

 

Whittled, what the heck...apparently she has led a very sheltered life, because I had to explain what whittling was.  I pointed out, you didn't have to whittle just wood, and that when I was a Girl Scout one of our projects was to whittle something out of a bar of soap.  Which by the way you don't want to do on a hot day, as the soap not only becomes sticky from sweaty hands, but also gets very, very dirty.  And that in the end your little white bunny will look more like a lump of coal than cuddly, furry, wabbit.

 

But I digress.

 

Frankie was still not impress, so I decide to try a different word than 'stick' and substituted 'poke' instead.

 

You can poke your eye out with a stick.   You can poke somebody in their eye with your finger.  You can poke a fire back to life, using a stick.  You can stick it to somebody by poking around in their private lives and then blabbing about it to everybody.

 

By now Frankie is about to come unglued.  I know I have gone way overboard in my explanation and she has that look on her face she would like to poke me into kingdom come, and happily stick me there with a stick.

 

I'm going to go now.  I have the sudden urge to whittle.