This is my final Pearls of Wisdom post and today it is all about chickens.
#11: The Chickens Come Home To Roost.
The idea of chickens coming home to roost goes as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer, born 1342/43- died October 25, 1400 (www.britannica.com/biography/Geoffrey-Chaucer) who in his work, The Parson’s Tale, 1390, writes that curses are like “a bird that returns again to his own nest”. By the early 19th Century the saying had morphed into chickens coming home to roost.(www.worldwidewords.org) and by the time I heard if from my mother it went something like; Be sure your chickens will come home to roost.
In this proverb the word Chickens is used as a metaphor for the attitudes, values and beliefs which inform our actions and the coming home to roost part means that the consequences of our actions come back to roost or sit right along side of us. It is a companion for the proverb which says; Be sure your sins will find you out; a warning to be a decent and honest human being. Often the consequences of actions done in secret come home to roost, sit right beside us, in a very public way. Just watch the news on any given night to get the drift of how that works!
#12: Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch.
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch is a reminder that NOTHING is a done deal until it has actually happened. We can have the anticipation of any number of events and very often life pans out much as we have planned but Nothing is a certainty until it has become a reality. There is not a single thing that suggests the world should conform to our plans! Understanding this and moving ahead in faith but leaving room for that little bit of apprehension and consideration for a possible plan B will safeguard one from disappointment.
Mary Quant the designer of the 1960s mini and models.
#13: And the last one; You look like a chicken with your tail pulled.
This was one of my mother’s sayings and to tell the truth I have no idea where it came from; it may have been an original of hers. Anyway, it amuses my husband every time I use it. I was a teenager in the 60s; all legs and very little skirt, so my mother would say, You’re not going out in that. You look like a chicken with your tail pulled! The best interpretation I can come up with is that this saying has to do with balance and proportion. A chicken does not have a tail, so if its tail has been pulled the chicken would look out of balance and proportion just as I am sure we did in the mini -mini-mini skirts of the 60s. Anyway, you can put your own spin on it but it is a cool saying and if anyone has an interpretation, I would be pleased to hear it.
