"Don't shit where you eat"

James Harbeck jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
Thu Jul 5 02:49:56 UTC 2007


I think I first met the phrase (as "You don't shit where you eat" or
"Ya don't shit where ya eat" -- I don't have the text ready to hand)
in a translation of a 1972 play by Franz Xaver Kroetz, _Farmyard_ (in
German, _Stallerhof_). The translation I read was published in 1976.
I don't know what the German phrase translated was; like as not, it
was merely idiomatically equivalent, not literally translated. I'd
have to find a copy of the play in German -- probably to be found in
some university libraries.

James Harbeck.

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