Chrysti The Wordsmith: Egg Phrases

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. The word egg has been used as a synonym for an individual chapel or fellow since at least the mid 19th century. Adding the modifier is good bad or tough creates terms of approval or disapproval. A bad egg is a troublesome dishonest individual bad eggs may appear wholesome At first blush but when cracked open their fall natures are revealed and honest helpful person may be a good egg but a tough egg has seen hard times. A sober intellectual is sometimes labelled an egghead. This sense of the Word was made popular during the nine hundred fifty two presidential campaign of Adelitas Stevenson a man who possessed both a conspicuously high forehead that seemed bald as an egg and high minded political and philosophical ideals to lay an egg is to make a humiliating mistake or deliver a bad performance. The expression comes from the British game of cricket. The team failing to score was said to have laid a

duck's egg a shape suggesting a zero. The phrase was taken up by 19th century American vaudevillians to signify a flop of a performance. When you walk on eggs you must proceed with caution lest you crack the shells. This metaphor suggests an impossibly precarious situation since nobody can walk on eggs without breaking them. From Montana State University in Bozeman. I'm Christie the wordsmith. Christy the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.