Chickens Come Home To Roost “Curses are like young chickens : they always come home to roost.” —Arabian proverb. This is another way of saying, with Shakespeare, “The evil that men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones” (Julius Cesar, III. ii). Both are wise sayings ; yet both are only half-truths, and, as such, are dangerous. The sense of our phrase is that, as...

What The Dickens !  The Very Dickens ! “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.” —SHAKESPEARE : The Merry Wives of Windsor, III. These exclamatory phrases signify either indignation, irritation, impatience, or astonishment. In these senses the word “dickens” is generally used with the interrogative pronouns: “what,” “who,” “how,” “when,” “why,” and “where.” Since the time of the great Victorian novelist, Charles Dickens, it has been natural to associate...

Put The Cart Before The Horse “The framers of the League [of Nations] Covenant put the cart before the horse by assuming the existence, and permanence, of a community-sense among peace-loving nations, and legislating upon that assumption before it had been proved valid.” —WICKHAM STEED : The Times, 25/7/1936. Many old proverbs naturally have their origin in pastoral and agricultural pursuits. Our present phrase is unquestionably of that order, and means...