Eating crow (archaically, eating boiled crow) is an English-language idiom meaning humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proven wrong after taking a strong position.^[1] Eating crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.^[1] Eating crow is of a family of idioms having to do with eating and being proven incorrect, such as to "eat dirt", to "eat your words", and to "eat your hat" (or shoe).^[1]

[edit] Origin theories

Its original form, to eat boiled crow, first appeared in the 1850s in America.^[1] Its exact origin is unknown but there are a number of explanations.

It may be related to the English idiom to eat humble pie.^[1] The English phrase is something of a pun—"umbles" were the intestines, offal and other less valued meats of a deer. Pies made of this were known to be served to those of lesser class who did not eat at the king’s/lord’s/governor’s table. Another dish likely to be served with humble pie is rook pie (rooks being closely related to crows).

It may also be the American version of "umble," since the Oxford English Dictionary defines crow (sb3) as meaning "intestine or mesentery of an animal" and cites usages from the 1600s into the 1800s (e.g., Farley, Lond Art of Cookery: "the harslet, which consists of the liver, crow, kidneys, and skirts." ^[2]

[edit] Notable examples

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) used this concept as a central metaphor in his short story "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" (1885). Morrowbie Jukes, a European colonist in India, falls into a sand-pit from which he cannot escape. Another man, a native Indian, is also trapped there who catches wild crows and eats them, but Morrowbie in his pride declares, "I shall never eat crow!" After days of nothing to eat, his hunger and desperation finally force him to do what he swore he would never do: literally eat crow.^[3]

After incumbent Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 United States presidential election despite many media predictions of a Dewey victory, the Washington Post sent a telegram to the victor:

YOU ARE HEREBY INVITED TO A "CROW BANQUET" TO WHICH THIS NEWSPAPER PROPOSES TO INVITE NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL WRITERS, POLITICAL REPORTERS AND EDITORS, INCLUDING OUR OWN, ALONG WITH POLLSTERS, RADIO COMMENTATORS AND COLUMNISTS . . . MAIN COURSE WILL CONSIST OF BREAST OF TOUGH OLD CROW EN GLACE. (YOU WILL EAT TURKEY.)^[4]

The crow is one of the birds listed in Leviticus chapter 11 as being unfit for eating.

[edit] Notes