When I was a kid and found myself coughing or choking on something my grandmother used to say, "Choke up chicken!" while patting me on the back. I've not thought about it until now, when I met a colleague at work who was coughing and spluttering. I cheerily said, "Choke up chicken!" and he gave me a most peculiar look.
Have other wordcrafters come across this phrase? I Googled it and found only five hits, three of which were dead ends. One, Hometruths, refers to the author saying it and realising he'd inherited the phrase from his father. One Google hit (which no longer seems to contain the same text) seemed to expand the phrase: "Choke up chicken, it might be a gold watch!".
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
I haven't heard the "choke up chicken" part but my Dad does say "cough it up, it might be a gold watch". "it might be a gold watch" gets over 5000 ghits. The full phrase as used by my Dad gets a mere 22 ghits.
I've never heard it either. That one's strictly British. My mother-in-law used to say "arms up" when the grandkids were choking. It really worked too. No chickens anywhere though.
WM
Posts: 1122 | Location: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
In this link it says "gold watch being some bizarre ryhming [sic] slang for phelgm [sic]." That's strange. Do they mean Cockney rhymes, do you think? (This Aytch might want to bone up on his spelling. )
That link of Kalleh's gives a real treaury of weird sayings. Many of them appear to be Scottish. I've heard several of the others, though. I can't think of a word that "gold watch" might be rhyming slang for; it looks like a guess by the poster; as Richard says, it's usually slang for Scotch (whisky). I'd say it's just used as an example of an expensive object. "Diamond ring" would fit just as well.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
No gold watches on the 9th., Arnie - but a tidy few glasses of pig's, I reckon. Young's bar at around 1220, if my train's on time and the queue's not too long.
Richard English
Posts: 7046 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
I don't think that apostrophisation is a strong point amongst Cockney Rhyming Slang creators ;-)
But my belief is that the rhyme itself is pig's (or pigs') ear (not ears), meaning beer (not beers). Once the rhyme has gained currency then it is treated as a noun in its own right.
So "titfer" (tit for tat = hat) would be used as would the noun hat, regardless of its etymology.
Richard English
Posts: 7046 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
I was just joshing you, Richard. I see I misread your post. Obviously, a few glasses of beer is what was meant. I was just wondering how one would pluralize pig's. If I wanted to say "I had one too many beers last night" in Cockney rhyming slang, would I say "I 'ad one too many pig'ses" or "I 'ad one too many pigs'"? That's all. Sorry for my confusion.
Starting with elephant's (trunk) 'drunk', and going through the others: Brahms (and Liszt), Oliver (Twist), Schindler's (List), and Scotch (Mist) 'pissed', i.e., 'drunk'.
No wonder I couldn't translate either--I think of "pissed" in its American slang meaning: i.e., angry, annoyed, sore-headed--not drunk. Tnx for the translation, Zmj!
WM
Posts: 1122 | Location: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
No wonder I couldn't translate either--I think of "pissed" in its American slang meaning: i.e., angry, annoyed, sore-headed--not drunk.
I had noted this difference myself and put it down to the difference between Dudweiser and real beer. Real beer makes you pleasantly merry and lets you wake up with a clear head; Dudweiser doesn't get you merry but is likely to make you vomit and wake up with a foul headache and dyspepsia.
Thus the difference between the slang terms since the result of Dudweiser drinking is likely to be annoyance and the result of proper beer drinking is pleasure. Thus "pissed" in the USA means annoyed; in the UK, drunk.
Well, it's a theory of sorts
Richard English
Posts: 7046 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
In the UK we might say "I'm pissed off" with something meaning that we were annoyed with it. On its own, though, "I'm pissed" means "I'm drunk", not "I'm annoyed".
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
Thus the difference between the slang terms since the result of Dudweiser drinking is likely to be annoyance and the result of proper beer drinking is pleasure. Thus "pissed" in the USA means annoyed; in the UK, drunk.
I'm thinking Language Log (or Snopes for that matter!) would disagree with that etymological theory.
Arnie, back to your original thread, I just found this site after googling "Choke Up Chicken", (I had just had a similar experience to you; used the phrase and my colleagues thought I was slightly peculiar!). It was a phrase that I grew up with, and now say without thinking, and certainly one my sons are growing up with hearing - maybe its regional specific, I grew up in Windsor and seemed perfectly "normal" there, but my colleagues are from "the north" and have never heard it. You'll be glad to know that there are others that use/d it, not just you, your grandma, my family, but a transcript of an old Radio 4 programme used it, the journalist fearing he's turning into his Dad by using the old phrases. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/0227davesmith.shtml
Just looking for this phrase online and I found this thread - the phrase as I know it is 'cough up chicken, you might find a gold watch down there' and my colleague also just looked at me most peculiarly! I think my stepmother used to say it - she is part english, part canadaian, so I don't know where she got it from, but all us kids say it now... and I expect my kids will too!
Somehow I missed Ben's post in January, and now we've got another! That's four people who've posted here, plus the guy who posted on the BBC blog who've heard the phrase or variations thereof. I feel strangely vindicated; it wasn't just an invention after all!
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
This may be completely after the fact but I came across this message board and found it extremely relevant. I was looking for a "cleaner" definition of this phrase after blurting it out at work, and being completely laughed out by co-workers. My Welsh Grandmother always said this when anyone was coughing, and I use it all the time. I figured this was yet another weird UK phrase that no one else knew (my gram was a lady and wouldn't use inappropriate phrases).
A bit bawdy here in the USA.
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