Subject: Putting Salt on a Bird's Tail
Date: Feb 26 20:36:50 2001
From: William R. Applegate - applgate at whidbey.net


Fellow Tweets,
On the 17th Of February I asked Tweeters if anyone knew the origin and
meaning of the phrase, Put (or lay) salt on a bird's tail. My daughter had
asked me what the phrase meant. The search was not straightforward, but it
was informative and fun! I was overwhelmed with the number of replies I
received and the erudition of many of our members.
My conclusion is that this is a very old phrase from Europe. Most of the
correspondents felt that it was jocular advice to children. If one can get
close enough to a bird to put salt on its tale, it should be easy to catch
it.
The first use of the phrase that the compilers of the Oxford English
Dictionary identified in the English language was from the Elizabethan era.
In 1580 Lyly, in his story Euphues, said: "It is ...a foolish bird that
staieth the laying of salt on hir taile."
Gary Bletsch wrote: "I do not know the exact origin of the expression 'to
put salt on a bird's
tail,' but I can shed some light and make a guess. My grandmother grew up in
Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary. Czech was her native language.
She used that folk expression. Therefore, I believe that this is an old
European folk saying. If it was indeed current in Bohemia, in addition to
England, that makes me suspect a very old origin indeed. I do not recall
anything in Aesop that matches, but perhaps this belief dates from the
classical era.
David Chelimer wrote: "I think the phrase can be attributed to Jonathan
Swift's 'Tale of a
Tub' (1704), in which he writes, '...As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt
upon
their tails.'"
Kirk Scarbrough traced it into the 19th Century with a quote from Sir Walter
Scott:
"His intelligence is so good, that were you to come near him with
soldiers
or constables, ... I shall answer for it you will never lay salt on his
tail."
- Redgauntlet. chap. xi.
Bud Anderson brings it up to the present: "I heard this one when I was a
child about 5 years old. It was meant as a test for gullibility I think.
Probably to teach children to think on their
own and to be able to evaluate deception in life. It worked on me. I was so
naive that I believed it well into my teenage years. I am unaware of its
origin.
Thank you one and all.
Bill Applegate
applgate at whidbey.net
Whidbey Island, WA