PIGS MIGHT FLY! (Mudpuddle Farm)

Product Information

This is a super book with a good storyline, amusingly told and wonderfully illustrated …The typography has been cleverly accomplished and works delightfully in combination with the Illustrations. I think this is a book children will want to look at again and again.” In Gnomologia (1732) Thomas Fuller moved the expression closer to its modern day form: "That is as likely as to see an Hog fly." Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) recorded the following in Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British (1732): If the sky falls, we shall catch larks" means that it is pointless to worry about things that will never happen. [6]

The literalists amongst us all know that pigs can fly. After all, newspapers keep saying 'swine flu'. Similar phrases in English include " when hell freezes over" and "monkeys might fly out of my butt", popularized in Wayne's World skits and movies. They are examples of adynata. [5] It can't be long before another correspondent adds to the list of unlikely origins of 'the whole nine yards' and suggests that it derives from Winthrop's 'three yards square' flaming aerial pig.Spanish – cuando las vacas vuelen ("when cows fly") or cuando los chanchos vuelen ("when pigs fly"). Its most common use is in response to an affirmative statement, for example "I saw Mrs. Smith exercising, I swear!" to which the response given would be something like, "Yeah right, and cows fly". Other variations slightly fallen into disuse include cuando las ranas crien pelo ("when frogs grow hair") and cuando San Juan agache el dedo ("when Saint John bends his finger"). The latter is a reference to the common depiction of St. John with one or two extended fingers. When pigs fly" is an adynaton, a way of saying that something will never happen. The phrase is often used for humorous effect, to scoff at over-ambition. There are numerous variations on the theme; when an individual with a reputation for failure finally succeeds, onlookers may sarcastically claim to see a flying pig. ("Hey look! A flying pig!") [3] Other variations on the phrase include "And pigs will fly", this one in retort to an outlandish statement. Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham (1880). "Tibs's Eve". The Reader's Handbook of Allusions, References, Plots and Stories: With Two Appendices. Lippincott. p.1005. There are many idioms of improbability, or adynata, used to denote that a given event is impossible or extremely unlikely to occur.

The earliest instance of the current form of the phrase, albeit in the singular, that I have found is in a letter written about betting on the St. Leger by “ an admirer of British sports”, published in Bell’s Life in London, and Sporting Chronicle of Sunday 17 th August 1834. The fact that the correspondent used quotation marks seems to indicate that it was an established idiom (he also wrote, in quotation marks, “HALF a loaf is better than NO bread”):The phrase " when pigs fly" (alternatively, " pigs might fly") is an adynaton—a figure of speech so hyperbolic that it describes an impossibility. The implication of such a phrase is that the circumstances in question (the adynaton, and the circumstances to which the adynaton is being applied) will never occur. The phrase has been used in various forms since the 1600s as a sarcastic remark. [1] History [ edit ] Can his determination and ingenuity defy the laws of physics? Will crotchety Farmer Rafferty finally make peace with his neighbour, Farmer Brightwell? Can Albertine the clever goose keep Pintsize from hurting himself as he tries to fly? In a letter published in The Liverpool Mercury of Tuesday 21 st August 1849, a certain John Henry Goldsmith used, also in quotation marks, the same form, but in the plural: I've a right to think," said Alice sharply... "Just about as much right," said the Duchess, "as pigs have to fly."