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[SolVanderlyn]

It's a horrible phrase and it doesn't make any sense unless it's a euphemism for something.

Even if it did/does somehow make sense, I cringe every time I hear someone say it.

 

[ronito]

In the past you'd have to blow crowphoenix if you were wrong

 

[MikeHattsu]

Wikipedia to the rescue?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_crow

The exact origin of the idiom is unknown

Or not.

 

[Rich!]

It comes from the days of olde england during witch hunts. If you were the main leader of the hunt, and your choice of supposed witch ended up being a normal woman, you had to eat twenty dirty crows, together with a mix of tizer and tabasco sauce.

 

[Bucket Mouse]

I'm from the UK and I'd never seen the phrase used until I started posting here. Same goes for saying someone is "salty" if they're jealous of something; here "bitter" is used instead.

 

[davepoobond]

Crow doesn't taste good


No reason to cringe though. It means you are eating your words and you are wrong.

 

[bidguy]

yeah eating crow and being salty are things i only hear at gaf

 

[C.Dark.DN]

yeah eating crow and being salty are things i only hear at gaf

Well, eating crow predates the internet by a long time.
If your not American, I'm not sure how often it's said.

 

[daffy]

As with everything nerds say incessantly, absolutely nowhere

 

[EightBitNate]

Gaming side

 

[marrec]

Crow meat was a very cheap and popular filling for many styles of savory desert pies back in the 17th century. So when people started using the phrase 'just deserts' it followed on naturally that those who got their 'just deserts' would be eating crow.

 

[Glass Rebel]

b-side of poe's the raven

 

[Jackpot]

I'm from the UK and I'd never seen the phrase used until I started posting here. Same goes for saying someone is "salty" if they're jealous of something; here "bitter" is used instead.

"bitter" has been used around the world for centuries. It's not some passing youth slang.

 

[Majine]

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

Crows get a pretty bad rap. I have also heard that if a crow crows at you you are being being cuckolded by your wife/gf.

 

[Nikodemos]

Crow meat was a very cheap and popular filling for many styles of savory desert pies back in the 17th century.

More specifically, rook meat. Rook chicks were a widely-used adulterant in dessert pies, in place of the far more expensive squab (pigeon chicks).

 

[Diprosalic]

the avengers thread.

 

[Fuzzy]

I always thought it had to do with boasting (crowing) about something and then later having to "eat" those words when you're proven wrong. I never thought it had anything to do with the bird.

 

[akira28]

obamacare?

 

[dabig2]

I always thought it had to do with boasting (crowing) about something and then later having to "eat" those words when you're proven wrong. I never thought it had anything to do with the bird.

That was my belief as well.

 

[bobbychalkers]

At some point in time, some dude took an L so hard that his people around him forced him to eat a crow.

 

[Izayoi]

I have also heard that if a crow crows at you you are being being cuckolded by your wife/gf.

That's awesome, actually. Time to tell all of my friends!

 

[empty vessel]

Some people ate crow and discovered it sucked.

 

[YoungHav]

obamacare?

lmao.

 

[DedValve]

I thought this as well.

 

[tirminyl]

When I read the thread title I immediately had a flashback to two guys making a wager. One was sure to win but his friend was resistant to that likely outcome. With nothing else left to bet, James (the potential loser) look desperately at his surroundings trying with his might to find something of value. "Caw!" he heard in the distant bustle of his surrounds. That is when the idea struck him. He would do something so outlandish that his friend would have no choice but to go along with it. He turned with a revived luster in his eyes and yelled "If...If I lose, I'll eat that crow!"

Something like that I suppose.

 

[Lagamorph]

This is a phrase? I have literally never heard it before this thread.

 

[strafer]

True story.

 

[Sadsic]

When I read the thread title I immediately had a flashback to two guys making a wager. One was sure to win but his friend was resistant to that likely outcome. With nothing else left to bet, James (the potential loser) look desperately at his surroundings trying with his might to find something of value. "Caw!" he heard in the distant bustle of his surrounds. That is when the idea struck him. He would do something so outlandish that his friend would have no choice but to go along with it. He turned with a revived luster in his eyes and yelled "If...If I lose, I'll eat that crow!"

Something like that I suppose.

wait who won i need to know the outcome of this delightful tale

 

[davepoobond]

eat crow

"crow" = Sheryl Crow?

 

[Christina Mackenzie]

Probably from the same place where "as the crow flies" came from.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

A quick look about turns up something about a brit forcing an american to eat a crow in 1812 at gun point and once regaining the weapon the american forcing the brit to do the same. A kind of "just reward" deal

Salty has a few meanings but I think the bitter version comes from the fighting game community or at least it passed from them to general internet/nerd culture. Like Scrub.

 

[Thursday War]

obamacare?

 

[strafer]

eat crow

"crow" = Sheryl Crow?

I would eat her.

 

[Stinkles]

It's from the aftermath of (especially north European) war. Crops and supplies were stolen or razed, so survivors would have to eat the crows that gathered in large numbers to feast on their dead.

The victor would pour scorn on his foes by saying they could eat crow. Meaning that he would visit terrible wrath upon them.

I just made that up, but it sounds super legit.

 

[Parch]

Well, eating crow predates the internet by a long time.

All languages have euphemisms. English has a lot of them because it has been spoken in so many regions.

I didn't realize just how much I used them until it was pointed out. I was working with a French Canadian who was still learning English so he called me out on them.
One was after an social event I said "there was more food than you could shake a stick at". That's when he gets the curious dog look and asks me why the hell would I shake a stick at food?

There's always some ancient history explaining the origin of these phrases, but they're just used out of habit with little knowledge of why.

 

[besada]

It dates to 1657 in the Americas. The crow was the traditional spirit animal of the Wampanoag people. After they were decimated in the Great Wampanoag Massacre, May 1657, other Native Americans used them as an example of how not to deal with the white man, lest they be forced to eat crow.

 

[Iksenpets]

It comes from a (most likely apocryphal) story from medieval Hungary, when King Matthias was accused by a rival nobleman of being a bastard whose real father was a lowly stable boy. Matthias belonged to the Hunyadi family, who used a crow in their family coat of arms, and so when he had the nobleman arrested, he sentenced him to death for his lies, and declared that his execution would be carried out by force feeding him crow, to remind him what a true "crow" King Matthias was.

 

[Htown]

As with everything nerds say incessantly, absolutely nowhere

"Eating crow" is not a "nerd" thing to say.

lol

 

[Jibbed]

It's from the aftermath of (especially north European) war. Crops and supplies were stolen or razed, so survivors would have to eat the crows that gathered in large numbers to feast on their dead.

The victor would pour scorn on his foes by saying they could eat crow. Meaning that he would visit terrible wrath upon them.

I just made that up, but it sounds super legit.

I'm accepting this as the truth, super legit-sounding.

 

[thetrin]

I'm from the UK and I'd never seen the phrase used until I started posting here. Same goes for saying someone is "salty" if they're jealous of something; here "bitter" is used instead.

Everyone says bitter. Salty isn't some mystical Americanism you missed out on. It's a modern phrase.

 

[Jackben]

As with everything nerds say incessantly, absolutely nowhere

The phrase predates all forms of electronic entertainment by at least 200 years. Try again.

 

[marrec]

More specifically, rook meat. Rook chicks were a widely-used adulterant in dessert pies, in place of the far more expensive squab (pigeon chicks).

Also magpies, but that was less common than rook meat.

 

[OnkelC]

courtesy Mike Works

 

[Jackben]

I remember when Mike Works was still a mod and made that contest for people to go troll the sports gaf threads. Good times, good times.