A few days ago I wrote about the word \u201cchicken.\u201d Later, I got to thinking about all the ways we use chicken in our everyday language and sometimes some of our language doesn\u2019t use the actual word chicken, but its relationship to chicken(s) is readily apparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier, I mentioned that to \u201cbe chicken\u201d means to \u201cbe afraid.\u201d But in addition to that, chicken feed has come to mean a small amount of money and we often (probably not politically correctly) refer to a girl or woman as a chick. If someone is chicken hearted, he\u2019s not brave and to play chicken is a game of stand off, to see who will give first. When I was in school, my teachers often referred to my poor handwriting as chicken scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve always heard that you shouldn\u2019t put all your eggs in one basket or count your chickens before they hatch and my grandmother always said that if something was hard to come by it was scarce as hen\u2019s teeth. My grandmother also used to say shake a tail feather, which meant to get moving. If something or someone annoys you, it ruffles your feathers and you probably think they are a dumb cluck or a bird brain. But if you over react, you may have egg on you face, but you shouldn\u2019t brood over it. We all know people that are like a chicken with it\u2019s head cut off and we often walk on eggshells when we\u2019re around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We live in a world where there is a pecking order and a lot of people want to rule the roost. When someone is just not nice, we say they\u2019re a bad egg. A mother hen is someone that is very protective and if you\u2019re very angry, you\u2019re madder than a wet hen. If you\u2019re out of here or gone, you flew the coop. And if you\u2019ve read this far and are disappointed\u2026. well, maybe this blog just wasn\u2019t what it was cracked up to be.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few days ago I wrote about the word \u201cchicken.\u201d Later, I got to thinking about all the ways we use chicken in our everyday language and sometimes some of our language doesn\u2019t use the actual word chicken, but its … Continue reading