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!".

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.

That's a new one for me. I've heard of choking the chicken, and that probably explains the peculiar look.

Never heard of it . . . nor of the "it might be a gold watch" thing. Wonder if it's an old joke?

Yeah, what neveu said. A bit bawdy here in the USA.

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

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Originally posted by wordmatic:
I've never heard it either. That one's strictly British.

Seems to be strictly arnie.

quote:

Seems to be strictly arnie

Not quite! At least one other person (British) in the world has used it; see the link in my original post.

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. )

"Gold watch" is Cockney Rhyming Slang for "Scotch" in my experience (Scotch being, of course, the drink, not the nationality).

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.

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.

but a tidy few glasses of pig's

Shouldn't that be pigs' (ears) for beers? I suppose if there were only two jars, it could be the same pig, but after that, you'd have multiple pigs.

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.

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.

Actually you'd probably say, "Gosh. I was Brahms last night!"

Brahms

OK. Or Oliver or Schindler's?

Maybe. Or perhaps "Elephant's"

... Or Scotch (Mist).

Ok, boys - can you translate for me, now, please? <smiles kindly>

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

Yep, me too, Wordmatic...unless you're trying to say one has "urinated."

Clever, boys!

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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

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".

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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.