Knee-High to a Grasshopper

Volume 2. Issue 2.

What was said? Have you heard of “knee-high to a grasshopper?”

Did someone really say that? Yes, when discussing my idiom newsletter at a colleague’s farewell party, a Partner asked me if I knew of that idiom… which I naturally did not.

What does it mean? Two meanings: 1) To be very young 2) Very short

Used in context :

Origin:

Originally recorded in 1814 as knee-high to a toad, this American Idiom has taken many forms… knee-high to a frog, bumblebee, splinter, mosquito, jackrabbit and…grasshopper.

In the Democratic Review in 1851 it was said “You pretend to be my daddies; some of you who are not knee-high to a grasshopper!

Among the >17k species of grasshoppers, reaching knee-high to a grasshopper would mean that a person is roughly less than an inch tall… that’s pretty short.

Sources:

http://www.bookbrowse.com/wordplay/archive/detail/index.cfm?wordplay_number=8 

http://www.answers.com/topic/knee-high-to-a-grasshopper

http://www.allaboutstuff.com/Critters/Knee_High_to_a_Grasshopper.asp

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Grasshopper

REFERRALS:  Do you LOVE Rema’s Idiom Blog and look forward to the posts all the time? If so, sign up your friends!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
You are currently subscribed to: REMA’s “Making Heads or Tails of Idioms” blog!
To unsubscribe, follow the instructions on the website. If you unsubscribe, please know that you will be disliked.