better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick vs better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick

better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

phrase
  • Better than nothing; not unsatisfactory but also not a reason for enthusiastic excitement. 

How often have the words better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick and better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )