>>15556586
>>15556443
who is being spoken to?
>>15556306
Eating crow is a colloquial idiom,[1] used in some English-speaking countries, that means humiliation by admitting having been proven wrong after taking a strong position.[2] The crow is a carrion-eater that is presumably repulsive to eat in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.[2] The exact origin of the idiom is unknown, but it probably began with an American story published around 1850 about a dim-witted New York farmer.[3] Eating crow is of a family of idioms having to do with eating and being proven incorrect, such as to "eat dirt" and to "eat your hat" (or shoe), all probably originating from "to eat one's words", which first appears in print in 1571 in one of John Calvin's tracts, on Psalm 62: "God eateth not his words when he hath once spoken".[2]
An Australian demonym for South Australian people is croweater but it does not carry the same idiomatic meaning as eating crow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_crow
word histories
ORIGIN OF ‘TO EAT CROW’ (TO SUFFER HUMILIATION)
Pascal Trégueretymology, public affairs, USA & Canadaanimals, folk etymology, newspapers & magazines, phrases, USA
The American-English phrase to eat crow means to be forced to do something humiliating—synonym: to eat humble pie.
I have discovered that to eat crow originated in a story that first appeared in 1850 and became so popular that it was regularly reprinted in various versions and various newspapers for over two decades.
The earliest occurrence of this story that I have found is from the Buffalo Daily Courier (Buffalo, New York) of Wednesday 18th September 1850:
Lake Mahopack has been crowded so this summer, that the farm-houses about it are filled with visitors. One of the worthy farmers in the vicinity had been worried to death by his visitors. They found fault with the food. This was bad and that was bad; there was no way of pleasing them.
“Darn it, what a fuss; I cant [misprint for can] eat anything,” said Isaac.
“Can you eat crow,” said one of his young boarders.
“Yes, I kin eat crow.”
“Bet you a hat,” said his guest.
The bet was made, a crow caught and nicely roasted, but before serving up, they contrived to season it with a good dose of Scotch snuff.
Isaac sat down to the crow. He took a good bite, and began to chew away. “Yes,” he said “I kin eat crow (another bite and an awful face,) I kin eat crow (Symptoms of nausea.) I kin eat crow, but I’ll be darned if I hanker arter [= after] it.”—Isaac bolted.
The earliest allusion to this story that I have found is political; on Tuesday 3rd November 1857, The Washington Union (Washington, D.C.) published a correspondence from New York reporting that, on 28th October, during a meeting of the Kings County Association, “composed of all the active democrats in the county”, a certain Matthew Hale Smith had declared:
cont: