Last week I shared clichés based on storms and today I’ve chosen birds as the theme! Once again I started with The Dictionary of Clichés and you’ll find other (online) sources referenced below.
A Bird in the Hand
“What one already has is better than what one might possibly get.”
Of course the full saying is, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” The Phrase Finder website points out that we first find a variation of this in English in John Capgrave’s The Life of St Katharine of Alexandria (1450): “It is more sekyr [certain] a byrd in your fest, Than to haue three in the sky a‐boue.” The proverb is found in other cultures much earlier, such as in Aesop’s Fables and in the 7th century Aramaic Story of Ahikar: “Better is a sparrow held tight in the hand than a thousand birds flying about in the air.”
Birds of a Feather
“Individuals of similar taste, background, or other characteristics in common.”
This is another short form of a longer proverb — “Birds of a feather flock together.” The idea comes from the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus (c. 180-175 BC): “Birds resort unto their like: so truth will return to them that practise her.” The Phrase Finder website provides several examples of the phrase appearing in English, including “Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together” in The Rescuing of Romish Fox (1545) and “Birdes of a feather will flocke togither” in The Dictionarie in Spanish and English (1599). “Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says” comes from Benjamin Jowett’s 1856 translation of Plato’s Republic.
That’s for the Birds
“It’s useless, worthless; not to be taken seriously.”
This is a 20th century American expression that emerged in the U.S. Army during World War II. It’s actually a shortened form of “strictly for the birds,” itself a sanitized version of “s*** for the birds,” referring to horse droppings from which small birds would extract seeds. This site gives several early examples of the phrase(s) being used in print.
A Bird’s-Eye View
“An overall picture, the large picture.”
This phrase, which seems self-explanatory, dates from circa 1600. I never thought it had a negative connotation, but I read that it can mean superficial as well as panoramic. Agree?
A Little Bird Told Me
“I have information from a secret source.”
The idea behind this saying comes from the Bible (Ecclesiastes 10:20):
“Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
or some winged creature tell the matter.”
Versions of the saying appear in The Proverbs of John Heywood (1546) and Brian Melbancke’s Philotimus (1583). Phrases closer to the current one appear in 1711 in a letter by Jonathan Swift (“I heard a little bird say so”) and in 1833 in Frederick Marryat’s Peter Simple (“A little bird has whispered a secret to me”).
Bald as a Coot
“Very bald indeed.”
The coot is a black waterbird with a white patch that makes it appear bald. It’s been called a “balled cote” since the 13th century, and in John Lydgate’s Chronicle of Troy (1430) we find the line, “And yet he was as balde as is a coote.”
