birds of a feather

Individuals of similar taste, background, or other characteristics in common. The term is a shortening of the proverb, “Birds of a feather flock together,” an observation made more than two thousand years ago by Ben Sira in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. The senti- ment was transferred to human beings and repeated by numerous English writers from Shakespeare’s time on.

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bird’s-eye view, a

An overall view, the large picture. The term dates from about 1600 and not only means “panoramic” but also may imply a somewhat superficial picture. Thus a “bird’s-eye view” of music history, for example, may try to cover five hundred years of musical composition in a one-semester course. A 1989 New York Times headline, “Human-Eye View,” announcing a special tour of a natural history museum’s ornithology collec- tion, gave this cliché a new twist.

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bird in the hand, a

What one already has is better than what one might possibly get. The complete saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” is an ancient Greek proverb, quoted in several of Aesop’s fables. It was repeated by the Romans and appeared in English in the fifteenth cen- tury. There are numerous versions in other languages. See also POSSESSION IS NINE POINTS OF THE LAW.

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cliff-hanger

A situation whose outcome is in extremely suspenseful doubt until the last moment. The term comes from serialized adventure films popular in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, in which, at the end of each installment, the hero or heroine is left in a very dangerous situation, sometimes literally dangling from a cliff. The rationale, of course, was to entice the audience to return for the next installment in order to see what happened. By the 1940s the term was being transferred to other sus- penseful states of affairs—for example, “the election was a cliff-hanger.”

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clear the decks, to

To  prepare  for  action. This  term  comes  from  naval warfare. In the times of wooden sailing ships, a crew prepared for battle by fastening down or removing all loose objects on the decks, lest they get in the  way  or  cause  an  injury. By  the  eighteenth  century  the  term  was  being used  to  mean  getting  ready  for  any  major  undertaking  by  getting  small details out of the way. See also BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES.

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clear the air, to

To remove confusion or controversy. The analogy to stormy weather was made as long ago as the fourteenth century, although at first the term meant to free something from clouds or other obscuring ele- ments. In time it came to mean getting rid of the sultry oppressiveness com- mon before a storm, which then was transferred to the removal of misunderstanding or ambiguity. Thus a British reporter wrote, “His explicit . . . reply to Parnell’s speech . . . cleared the air” (Manchester Examiner, 1885).

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clear conscience, to have a

To feel free from blame, obligation, or a similar burden because one is guiltless (or so believes). The sixteenth- century writer John Lyly used the term several times in his Euphues (1580)—“a cleere conscience is a sure card”—and the same phrase turned up in James Howell’s proverb collection of 1659. Nearly a century later Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Keep Conscience clear, then never fear” (Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1749).

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