Happy throw back Thursday! Today we have some words of excellent advice as well as a phrase whose beginnings date back to the 1660's but I think are still used today. Enjoy! Hope you are adding to your scores with at least one of the phrases.
14 - Don't count your chickens before they hatch – Proverb; You should not count on something before it happens; you should not rely on the results of your plans before they are realized; you should not expect all of your hopes to be fulfilled. (Wictionary)
A hen (female chicken) lays eggs from which young chickens (chicks) “hatch†or emerge. However, not all eggs successfully produce a chicken, so you shouldn’t count the eggs and assume that each one will produce a chick – you should wait to count the actual chickens until they have hatched.
This phrase may have its origins with Aesop, the Greek fable writer who lived around 620 to 560 BC. In his fable “The Milkmaid and Her Pailâ€, a milkmaid carries a pail (bucket) of milk on her head and daydreams about selling the milk, buying chickens with the money and then becoming so rich from selling the eggs that she becomes independent. She will then have enough money to shake her head to say no to all the young men trying to win her love. However, in the fable she is so immersed in this daydream that she shakes her head and accidentally drops the milk, therefore destroying the possibility of her dream by imagining it too soon. There is a line from the fable which reads “Ah, my child,†said the mother, “Do not count your chickens before they are hatched†(
https://www.bloomsbury-international.co ... hatch.html" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank)
16 - Eat humble pie - in common usage, to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error. (Wikipedia)
In the USA, since the mid 19th century, anyone who had occasion to 'eat his words' by humiliatingly recanting something would be said to 'eat crow' (previously 'eat boiled crow'). In the UK we 'eat humble pie'. The unpalatability of crow, boiled or otherwise, seems clear, but what about humble pie?
In the 14th century, the numbles (or noumbles, nomblys, noubles) was the name given to the heart, liver, entrails etc. of animals, especially of deer - what we now call offal or lights. By the 15th century this had migrated to umbles, although the words co-existed for some time. There are many references to both words in Old English and Middle English texts from 1330 onward. Umbles were used as an ingredient in pies, although the first record of 'umble pie' in print is as late as the 17th century. Samuel Pepys makes many references to such pies in his diary; for example, on 5th July 1662:
"I having some venison given me a day or two ago, and so I had a shoulder roasted, another baked, and the umbles baked in a pie, and all very well done."
and on 8th July 1663:
"Mrs Turner came in and did bring us an Umble-pie hot out of her oven, extraordinarily good."
It is possible that it was the pies that caused the move from numbles to umbles. 'A numble pie' could easily have become 'an umble pie', in the same way that 'a napron' became 'an apron' and 'an ewt' became 'a newt'. This changing of the boundaries between words is called metanalysis and is commonplace in English. (sorry, no source until end of game) But if you enjoy culinary history, you might enjoy this link:
http://www.culinarylore.com/food-histor ... humble-pie" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
Also - The adjective humble, meaning 'of lowly rank' or 'having a low estimate of oneself' derived separately from umbles, which derives from Latin and Old French words for loins. (Incidentally, if you feel like girding your loins and aren't sure exactly where they are, the OED coyly describes them as 'the parts of the body that should covered with clothing'). The similarity of the sound of the words, and the fact that umble pie was often eaten by those of humble situation could easily have been the reason for 'eat humble pie' to have come to have its current idiomatic meaning.