Eat the crow?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, particularly “eat the crow”: “Only time will tell, and I’ll gladly eat the crow if proven wrong.”

My comments:

Here, the speaker is being a good sport, vowing to keep a promise or pay the price if he/she fails.

The price to pay is to eat the crow, metaphorically speaking of course.

The crow is a bird whose meat is believed to be unsavory and hard to swallow. Hence, when two people are making a bet on something, they’ll make the loser eat the crow as punishment.

A queer form of punishment, to be sure.

“Eat the crow” is an American idiom which, if you search the Internet, leads you to many theories regarding its origin. However, a simple as well as probable, or at least plausible theory points to two farmers doing exactly what I’ve described, making a bet on something and forcing the loser to eat the crow as punishment.

In our example, the speaker apparently makes a statement and, being a good sport, is happy to admit his/her mistake if proven wrong.

Now, the question is, if the crow’s meat is anything but delicious, why will the speaker “gladly” eat it?

That means the speaker won’t mind if they lose bet because they are actually happy with the outcome – a scenario they’re happy with, even though they personally don’t see much chance of it happening.

For example, the other day, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the expense of other writers and poets including the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who, as does Dylan has many fans in China. We can certainly imagine a Bob Dylan fan making the following statement:

“Bob Dylan being a singer instead of a professional writer, I don’t think he has a chance. So I’ll pick Murakami since, for one thing, he seems to have been in the running for ever. However, I’ll be happy to eat crow if Dylan wins.”

In other words, hurrah and halleluiah, Bob.

Fantastic, isn’t it, that a non-conforming singer and songwriter has won the most prestigious prize for literature?

And in the process, making the act of eating crow a delicious experience for many who have doubted his winning, I am sure.

A sign, a small sign, perhaps, of The Times They are A-changin’?

All right, more media examples of people who are forced to eat the crow when they admit to making a mistake, though perhaps not as happily as the speaker does in our example.

1. When Barack Obama was up by 4 percentage points in the polls, the media said the race was a dead heat.

Now that Obama is down by 4 percentage points in the polls, the media say he is dead meat.

The media giveth, and the media taketh away. Fickle be the name of the media.

The media mind-set is dependent not on fact, but on attitude. And now comes a man who can change that attitude: Joe Biden.

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

Say it ain’t all on you, Joe, as you prepare to meet the Janesville Juggernaut, Paul Ryan, in the “Who Gets Lucky in Kentucky?” vice presidential debate at Centre College in Danville on Thursday.

In some respects, the bar is set low. Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama so soundly in the first presidential debate that the media thought it looked like Mike Tyson vs. Cicely Tyson.

So it’s up to you, Joe. The stakes are high. The party faithful are in what Obama senior adviser David Plouffe used to call “bed-wetting” mode.

Big-time blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote in The Daily Beast on Monday: “… Obama just essentially forfeited the election. In the first matchup between the two candidates, one was a potential president, the other a dithering wonk. I’m still reeling. I’m sorry if these are not things an Obama supporter should say at this point. But the demoralization is profound.”

Wow. All this after one debate. In the old days, disappointed pundits would open up the whiskey. Now they are opening up their veins.

Calm down, Andrew. The president lost a debate; he didn’t lose Seattle to a North Korean missile. The moon is not about to crash into the Earth. “Homeland” is not being canceled.

The British got through the entire Second World War with the motto: “Stay Calm and Carry On.”

The very least Democrats should be able to manage now is: “Eat Some Crow and Pray for Joe.”

- Eat crow and pray for Joe, Politico.com, October 10, 2012.

2. Wendy Williams, the world’s most notorious gossip artist, aint buying the idea of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian being able to sustain a marriage.

The self-absorbed, spotlight-seeking couple recently went public with their engagement, and Kim has even been spotted wearing a 15 karat blinged-out diamond ring bought for her by West, reports have confirmed.

Williams hasn’t been shy with her criticism of Kim and Kanye’s romance, claiming that marriage between the two was unlikely to occur. She even plans to make good on her promise to “eat a crow” once the pair walks down the aisle. There’s only one catch–the marriage must last 73 days, Wendy says, that’s one more day than Kim’s union to former husband and current NBA big man Kris Humphreys.

“I’ve always said that Kim and Kanye will never get married,” she says. Williams goes on to quickly add “And I said if they do get married, I will eat crow.”

Looks like Wendy might be stuffing her face with the ominous bird a lot sooner than anyone could’ve anticipated.

Do you guys think she’ll cook it first?

- Wendy vows to ‘eat crow’ if Kim and Kanye’s marriage lasts 73 days, EURWeb.com, October 26, 2013.

3. In a classic case of an insult gone wrong, Trump accidentally determined he was unfit to be the President.

During a rally in Greenville, N.C. Tuesday night, Trump was speaking on the topic of the recently released FBI documents of the Hillary Clinton investigation. According to prepared remarks, Trump was just supposed to touch on the fact that Clinton had told the FBI several times she couldn’t recall certain events or discussion and move on from there. Instead, the Republican nominee ad-libbed and said:

“Hillary and her top aides told the FBI and others related in the lawsuits that they couldn’t recall or remember — can’t remember anything! By the way, if she really can’t remember, she can’t be president! She doesn’t remember anything! She doesn’t even remember whether or not she was instructed on how to use emails. ‘Were you instructed on how to use?’ ‘I can’t remember.’”

When Trump veered off his prepared remarks, and by assuming Trump is to be held by his own standards, he accidentally declared that he can’t be president, either. Trump has been involved in thousands of lawsuits and has testified by his own estimation “hundreds” of times. And a look at his case depositions reveals he also can’t recall things that happened in the past....

Philip Bump from the Washington Post says there are 600 pages of testimony filled with Trump unable to remember or recall key events in cases....

Hilariously after being stonewalled by Trump, the lawyer gets obviously frustrated and asks if Trump has a good memory, and Trump doesn’t know the answer to that either.

Q. Do you believe you have one of the best memories in the world?

A. That I can’t tell you. I can’t tell for other people, but I have a good memory.

Q. You’ve stated, though, that you have one of the best memories in the world?

A. I don’t know. Did I use that expression?

Now, not remembering every detail about every interaction in events that took places years prior isn’t disqualifying to be president. But Trump is the one who came up with the standard and deserves to at least eat some crow.

- Trump Accidentally Declares Himself Unfit To Be President, Groopspeak.com, October 13, 2016.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣 编辑：丹妮）