The less polite chicken shit originated in the military, probably during World War I; during World War II it was widely used in complaint against petty, disagreeable military rules.#1960•
As reliably as salmon swim upriver to spawn, chickens are said to come home to rest and sleep. The English poet Robert Southey is credited with being the first to use this observation metaphorically when he wrote, "Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost" (The Curse of Kehama, 1810).
The saying is still used to mean that the consequences of doing wrong always return to haunt the wrongdoer.#1979•
The verb to gander has meant "to wander aimlessly," as the male goose often does, since the late 1600s#1970•
Chapter 4
From the 1920s comes yet another term, straight from the horse's mouth, referring to information that comes from the best authority, just as the age of a horse can be told fairly precisely by looking in its mouth. A horse's permanent teeth appear in succession, the first pair at the age of two and one-half, the second pair at three and one-half, and the third pair between ages four and five.
Thus the shrewdest horse trader cannot really fool a knowledgeable buyer as to the age of a race horse, although its other qualities might well be open to fulsome exaggeration.#1969•
Chapter 5
The wild beasts of Wall Street -- bears and bulls -- are said to take their name from an old story about a man who sold a bear's skin before he had actually trapped the bear. From this came, in the 16th century or even earlier, bearskin jobber, a broker who gambled on his belief that the market would fall (prices would drop) and behaved accordingly (sold his holdings while he could still get a high price).
This term was easily shortened to bear.
The bear's counterpart, the bull, believes prices are going to rise and therefore buys while they are still low.
The source for this kind of bull is less clear.
Some believe it comes from the bull's tossing objects up with his horns; others believe that bull-baiting was more or less a companion sport to bear-baiting.
Whichever the case, both the concept and the terms have stuck, and we still speak of a bullish or bearish investor, described as optimistic or pessimistic respectively, and a bull market or bear market, depending on which type of investor prevails.#1963•
Many of the terms relate to deer hunting, where in terms of both sport and commerce a buck is far more valuable than a doe. A nervous, inexperienced hunter is said to have buck fever, a term also transferred to any nervous anticipation of a new experience; it originated in America in the 1830s. Buckshot, a large size of lead shot used in hunting game, dates from the early days of firearms and has been so called since about 1400.
One writer suggests it gave rise to pass the buck -- that is, to shift responsibility or blame someone else -- from a counter consisting of a piece of buckshot put in front of the dealer in a poker game and passing it on to the next person who was to deal.
Another source suggests the object so passed originally was a buckhorn, a type of knife so named because its handle was made from a buck's antlers.
Whichever is true, the term originated in the United States in the latter half of the 19th century and was made famous after 1949 by President Harry S Truman, who kept a sign on his desk in the White House that said, "The buck stops here" (that is, I'll take full responsibility).#1978•
The animal has been used for thousands of years to carry people and goods, as well as for its milk and flesh, and its hair, which makes a fine wool cloth. Unlike domesticated cattle and horses, camels can get along perfectly well without human help. They tolerate broiling sun and freezing cold, and can go without food or water for quite long periods.
They also can carry prodigious weights.
It is this characteristic that is referred to in the straw that broke the camel's back and the related expression, the last straw.
Even the strongest camel eventually can be overburdened and collapse if too much is required of it, a concept readily transferred to human beings.#1959•
The jackal is an animal about the size of a fox and, like it, belongs to the dog family. It has been prevalent in the Near East since Biblical times, and the name seems to come from the Persian shagal. It was once believed to hunt in troops in order to provide the lion with prey and then eat whatever the lion left behind.
It thus was called the lion's provider.
This myth survived, and today we use the name jackal for a person who does demeaning or dishonest tasks for someone else, that is, an individual who does another's dirty work.#1966•
The outstanding characteristic of wolves as transferred to human pursuits is their rapaciousness, their constantly ravenous appetite. To wolf], or wolf down, means "to consume greedily," scarcely bothering to chew, and to be wolfish is to be "fiercely greedy." Similarly, because wolves never seem to have enough to eat, they became symbolic of hunger and want.
To keep the wolf from the door has meant to keep out hunger or ward off starvation since at least the 15th century and was a well-known proverb by the time John Heywood included it in his collection.
The Walt Disney film Three Little Pigs (1933) featured a song -- "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" -- in which, it has been suggested, the wolf had a double meaning of predator (attacking the pigs) and hunger.#1976•
Chapter 6
Speak no evil surreptitiously, because a bird will reveal your secrets, warned the author of Ecclesiastes about 250 B.C. Ever since, a little bird has stood for a secret source of private information, the source that investigative reporters often rely on and whose identity they conceal and defend, even on pain of imprisonment.#1958•
Aesop told at least two fables to illustrate that it is foolish to give up something already gained in hopes of some greater future gain, a lesson daily ignored by some stock market speculators. In one, the nightingale (or sparrow, depending on the translation) tries to talk its captor, the hawk, into letting it go, since it is but a small morsel, and to search for bigger prey.
But the hawk knows better.
In another, a fisherman catches an anchovy that argues along the same lines as the nightingale.
The proverb originated in Greek, was repeated in Latin -- it appeared in Britain in Latin Medieval Proverbs (c.
1400) as a rhymed verse -- and by 1450 or so had an English version.
Today it is often put: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Similar sayings appear in Italian (better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow), German (one bird in the hand is better than ten flying over the land), French (better a sparrow than a goose in the air), Spanish (a bird in the hand is better than a hundred flying), and other languages.#1965•
Coleridge's famous Rime of the Ancient Mariner, quoted above, is a narrative poem about a sailor who does kill an albatross, and the terrible penalties he and his companions must suffer for this deed. Coleridge himself had never seen the actual bird, but the belief he recorded became the source of the figurative meaning of albatross, that is, a burden of guilt one must carry about, so heavy that it prevents progress or action.
It often is put as to have an albatross around one's neck.#1953•
Crows normally head straight for their food supply, so as the crow flies means the shortest distance between two points.#1956•
Magpies also are known for their habit of bringing back odds and ends to their nests, so the human magpie may be either a chatterbox, as above, or an indiscriminate hoarder of miscellaneous objects.#1954•
Swallows are migratory birds, flying south to avoid the northern winter. Hence came the old proverb, Don't take a swallow under your roof, quoted by Erasmus (Adagia, 1523), meaning don't befriend someone who will abandon you during bad times.#1950•
Chapter 7
The larvae of certain insects are soft-bodied creeping creatures that sometimes are loosely called worms. From this we have the bookworm, originally (16th century) the name for a maggot that lives on the pages of books, eating holes in them, but now simply meaning a person who is extremely fond of reading.#1967•
Worms are of incalculable usefulness, but perhaps none more so than to the fisherman who uses them as live bait. Generally one brings them along in a jar or other container, where they form an incredible tangle, wriggling about and entwining themselves with one another. From this came the expression to open a can of worms, for introducing any complicated problem or insoluble difficulty.#1949•