Recently I encountered a dispute about the meaning of the phrase “the goose hung high.” For example, “Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. For three or four months, the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even made a little money.” (p. 7, Chapter 1 “Bill’s Story,” Alcoholics Anonymous)
I said that the phrase refers to hanging a dead goose from a rafter to allow it to age, and that indicates good times, prosperity. This is an understanding I acquired decades ago, probably when studying literature in college. Here’s the way that view is expressed in a note from Phrases.org:
“the goose hung / hangs high: there’s a goose hanging in the larder, or that things are going well. The fact that there’s a goose hanging in the larder (drying out to preserve it) means that you’ll have enough to eat this fall, or Christmas, and therefore things are good.”
Others said it refers to live geese flying in a pattern, and flying either low, meaning bad weather, or high, meaning good weather. Frankly I had never heard this meaning before. Some of my friends cited The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has this to say:
“Question: What does “goose hung high” mean? It seems to come from the 1800s.
Answer: This expression is based on a superstition of that time. When geese flew low, it meant that evil spirits were present. When geese flew, or “hung,” high in the sky, the evil spirits were gone, and all was well.”
Now, I love The Old Farmer’s Almanac — I keep the current year’s copy hanging on a hook next to the toilet in my bathroom — however, I don’t consider it correct on this phrase origin. So, I went searching further.
In TheFreeDictionary.com, the following note casts doubt on that supposed phrase origin:
“The goose hangs high: Things are looking good, everything is rosy, the future looks promising. No satisfactory explanation has yet been offered to account for the origin of this expression. The theory that the phrase was originally the goose honks high, based on the unsubstantiated notion that geese fly higher on clear days than on cloudy ones, must be discounted for lack of evidence. This expression, which dates from at least 1863, was used to describe fine weather conditions before it was applied to the state of affairs in general.
If you believe there is a plethora of money, if you believe everything is lovely and the goose hangs high, go down to the soup houses in the city of New York. (Congressional Record, February, 1894)”
In case you think that hanging up a dead goose to age is strange and doesn’t sound likely, note that it is a common practice to age game birds (more common in Europe than in the United States), as discussed in the article “On Hanging Pheasants” (found on honest-food.net here:
http://honest-food.net/2012/10/20/on-hanging-pheasants-2/)
So how can this dispute be settled — or can it be settled? Stay tuned! I’ll let you know as soon as I find out more.
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