The other day, during a conversation with a neighbor, we talked about something in the neighborhood that should be corrected, or at least reported to the HOA. I made the statement that someone should do it, but it wasn’t going to be me. My neighbor responded with, “chicken.” Just that one word — chicken. Nothing else. But I knew exactly what he was talking about — he was saying that I was afraid to point this out to the homeowner’s association.
Well, of course, this got me to wondering how “chicken” came to mean coward, or suggest weakness.
The definition of chicken is a domestic bird used for meat and laying eggs. If you think about it, chickens are very timid, and many things scare or frighten them and actually it’s fairly common to use animals to express human traits, like “strong as a bear” or “sly as a fox.”
But I found an interesting story about where the term “chickening out” may have come from….
In 1864 the Union Army provided a chicken to each person who enlisted. He would take the chicken home, clean, dress and cook it for dinner — there was no refrigeration in those days. The next day he came back to ship off for the Union Army. Should he not come back, his name was printed in the local paper — at the time that was very shameful for the family name. However, a relative with the same family name could fulfill the Army contract by enlisting instead of the the original person. The Union Army didn’t care as long as they were someone of “worth.”
The story describes a farmer in the southern Adirondacks of New York, 39 years old. He left his wife and 4 children to cover a contract to spare the family name the shame and disgrace from a nephew who “chickened out.”
In ancient times, army officers observed “sacred chicken” before going to battle. The sacred chickens were given grain and if they ate it, the battle commenced, if they didn’t, the armies withdrew from the fight.
Interesting — and plausible — explanations as to how the word chicken has come to suggest weakness of some sort. Anyhow, that’s what I found out…. unfortunately these days, when I’m called chicken, it’s usually a reference to me being “no spring chicken.”
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