A Conversation for Bird Conspiracy Theory
Cuckoos do have a lot to live down
paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant Started conversation Oct 28, 2020
But after all, they are cuckoo.
Cuckoos do have a lot to live down
Willem Posted Oct 29, 2020
I still wonder how that association came about ...
Cuckoos do have a lot to live down
Dmitri Gheorgheni, Post Editor Posted Oct 29, 2020
The online etymological dictionary says, 'Slang adjectival sense of "crazy" is American English, 1918.'
The Old English word was 'geac', which is 'geck', which means silly or crazy in German...
An old Scottish/Northern English word gawk, meaning a stupid person, and our word gawk, meaning 'stare like you don't have good sense', all come from that old word for cuckoo. Apparently, it's because the European cuckoo really does sound like a cuckoo clock, and English people thought it was a silly bird call...
...though what right they had to make fun of a bird, I don't know. Has anybody noticed how silly most humans sound?
Forgive me if you've heard this one before, but the first time I heard a cuckoo in the woods, I looked at my watch and said, 'He's running slow.' Poor birds...
Cuckoos do have a lot to live down
paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant Posted Oct 30, 2020
The cuckoo house
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Cuckoos do have a lot to live down
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