Don’t count your chickens before they come home to roost
Posted: January 5, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: chickens come home to roost, expressions, humor, language, malaphor, malaphors, never count your chickens before they hatch, words 3 CommentsThe speaker really laid an egg in fumbling these two proverbs, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” (don’t make any plans on something before it happens) and “chickens come home to roost” (consequences of doing wrong always catch up with the wrongdoer). These fowl phrases seem to get mixed up a lot – see “Never count your eggs before they hatch (July 9, 2012 post) , and “Might the roosters be guarding the henhouse?” (August 2, 2014 post). I was eggcited when Sam Edelmann laid this one on me. Now only if the speaker had added cows coming home…
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“fowl phrases,” “eggcited,” and “laid this one on me.” Ha! Your narrative was almost as funny as the mixed up proverbs.
[…] animals and their offspring ( e.g., all your eggs lined up, too many eggs spoil the soup, and don’t count your chickens before they come home to roost, to name just a few). This beauty is a mash up of “don’t put all your eggs in one […]
No doubt I was not the first, but I cobbled together this proverb a few years ago for a joke. With a group of friends we were just trying to produce silly proverbs. However, when we thought about it, it made sense:
‘Don’t assume that your misdeeds will be found out’
(Perhaps not a very moral message)