"Don't shit where you eat"

[Charles Doyle]

B. J. Whiting's _Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings_ (1989) gives "Don't shit where you eat" from 1953, Bellow's _Adventures of Auggie March_. Variants of the image include "shit where you sit," "shit on your own doorstep," and the probably-euphemistic "be sick in one's own hat" (the last one, in Whiting's collection, from 1937). All are probably related to the much older conceit about fowls' not fouling their own nest.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 11:20:51 +0200
>From: Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
>
>On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 20:16:25 -0400, "Sam Clements" <SClements at NEO.RR.COM> said:
>
>> Sorry for the crude title. =20
>>
>> Has anyone searched to find out what the earliest version of this must have been?  I would doubt that it was that phrasing.
>>
>> Anyone suggest what the original sentiment might have been?
>>
>> Sam Clements
>
>Google Books gives this citation from 1965, though the phrase ought to be a older than that:
>
>
>http://tinyurl.com/2p4722
>
>Paul

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