"Don't shit where you eat"

[Sam Clements]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Doyle" <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: "Don't shit where you eat"


> 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

Thanks for that.  I just thought to search Google Books, and lo and behold,
the erliest(short of an unsearchabe, probably false hit) is Thomas Chandler
Halliburton, 1838.
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22dirty+bird%22+fouls+own+nest+date%3A1600-1839&btnG=Search+Books

OF course, it was no doubt an older proverb.  But I find the Halliburton
connection interesting, considering how many early sayings/words seem to
come from his works.

Sam Clements

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org