kæft trit og retning

11:55 Jun 4, 2012 

I had actually never heard of the Urban Dictionary before, so I don't know what the intentions behind it are. But obviously (sometimes weirdly) some words do change meaning as years pass. Hence Danish words like 'bjørnetjeneste' and 'forfordelt' now have two opposite meanings depending on which generation you belong to. However, this doesn't mean that the 'old' sense of each of these words is now 'wrong'. It just means that different people use different words in different ways.

In this context, if you look at the Danish source term 'kæft, trit og retning', it has a negative connotation related to the way children were treated at school many years ago, including being beaten if they did not comply with teachers' rules, and maybe the way in which soldiers were (are?) supposed to blindly follow orders. In my book, that is 'old-school discipline', as in 'out of date'. If 'old-school discipline' in your book (or the asker's) is something positive, then it is not the right term to use here.

11:02 Jun 4, 2012 

Hi Marianne
Looking closer at the deifinition of 'old-school discipline' that I referred to earlier (must admit I didn't read it through), I question the validity of the Urban Dictionary at all.
In my humble opinion, you may be right in thinking that 'old-school' in general may be gaining a positive meaning on a par with 'old-world', but when you combine with 'discipline', the connotation is negative.

08:17 Jun 4, 2012 

Square bashing is not quite the same thing, but Gitte´s suggestion certainly rings a bell with me.
That is an army expression, but it was what we called the marching drill!
At my highly traditional boarding school (read old-fashioned, even then, but it has improved a lot since), we were always in groups or teams of one kind or another, whether it was games, singing in the choir or marching from the houses where we slept to the big dining hall.
At town Guide parades our troop always went in front because the others were not so good at marching!
But it was torture to a loner like me... even though I have many good memories too.