Quinn Minute – Old sayings

by Rix Quinn

Remember that old saying “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?”

I thought about this yesterday while chewing fried chicken. I don’t know what other birds are worth, but I had to pay for the chicken.

Seriously, the quote goes back to ancient times. Bird hunters reasoned that one bird already caught guaranteed dinner, while two birds uncaught (“in the bush”) meant more work plus the possibility of failure.

Why did the hunters want those other fowls too? Maybe they expected guests for dinner, or maybe they just wanted to see if birds in the heather flock together.

See, you never can tell what our silly prehistoric pals thought! Back then, they drew stuff on their walls and called it art.

Today we call it graffiti. But if somebody famous sketched it, we call either a “mural” or “wallpaper.”

The birdie saying is much like another one claiming, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

This means either (1) people always want what they can’t get, or (2) the neighbor buys better fertilizer.

What’s the lesson here? I’m guessing it is this:

“If you see two birds in a bush surrounded by green grass on the other side of a fence, don’t try to catch them, because they are probably in a zoo.”