These colloquial sayings are truly 'the bee's knees'

There's nothing like eating crow.

Last month I answered a reader's question about fall leaf color with the prediction that fall color would be a bust this year. Boy, was I wrong! The last week of October and early November have been magnificently colorful.

Now that I'm wiping the feathers off my mouth, I've started thinking about "eating crow." What does it mean, really? Or, for that matter, what does it mean to sleep like a log? Or to bark up the wrong tree?

The English language is rich with idioms. Many of these sayings come from the nature. Some of them make sense and reflect "real" biology. Some make no sense and are scientifically screwy -- or just plain implausible. Here are some of my favorites.

First, those legendary crows. "To eat crow" means to humbly admit a mistake. This expression originates from the fact that crows, being omnivores who eat anything and everything, make very bad eating themselves. Eating crow, either literally or figuratively, is a disagreeable experience. A second crow-inspired idiom is "as the crow flies." This refers to the most direct way to get from point A to point B. Presumably crows don't mess around when they're navigating from one road kill to the next. So when you're in a hurry, click on "as the crow flies" in MapQuest.

Another common expression is "to eat like a bird." My question is, "Which bird?" It makes a big difference. If you eat like a turkey vulture, you may not be invited to many dinner parties. These big bald-headed scavengers stick their entire faces into carcasses of road kill and slurp up the nastiest entrails and the grossest guts. Post repast, they puke a lot -- in order to share the yummy meal with their young.

Owls and hawks, of course, are ruthless predators whose table manners are little better than the vultures'. These birds pierce their prey with their talons, rip it to shreds with their bills and down the raw flesh with relish. Like vultures, owls heave after the meal but at least they puke in neat little packages called pellets.

The endearing nectar-sipping ruby-throated Hummingbirds are polite enough at our bird feeders. Bear in mind, however, that they consume vast quantities of food to keep up with their metabolic needs. Sometimes these little birds eat twice their body weight each day. If you eat like this bird, you might consume, say, 280 pounds of burgers a day. And that's not going to pass muster in the etiquette -- or health -- departments.

While we're talking birds, what's up with the "swan song" thing? Most of the swans we see around here are mute swans -- they can't sing. Legend has it, however, that a swan (mute or otherwise) will sing a heartbreakingly beautiful song just before it dies. Thus, one's swan song is a farewell performance, or a final appearance, before death.

"Blind as a bat" is an expression with understandable origins, but it's very misleading. Bats are active at night, but they are not blind. Being equipped with the very cool ability to echolocate the insects they eat in the air, bats don't rely on sight. We diurnal, earth-bound, omnivorous humans do. How else would we read the menu at Dairy Queen ...?

On to the rodents. Ever have mice in your house? If so, you'll know how much noise they can make, especially in the middle of the night when you're trying to sleep. You'd swear those were elephants in the walls. So much for being "quiet as a mouse."

What about "the bee's knees"? Any high school biology teacher will tell you that insects don't have knees. They do have these cool things where the knees would be, should they have knees. They're called corbiculae, or pollen baskets, and they are handy little carrying cases for the pollen bees transport. Not that there's any connection, but the expression "the bee's knees" means the height of excellence. It has a better ring to it than "the bee's corbiculae."

When someone is perfectly content, he is described as "happy as a clam." I've always wondered, how happy are clams anyway? And how would we know since they can't smile?

Finally, what's up with "the cat's pajamas"? This expression means that something is awesome, great, or daring. Daring indeed. My cat wouldn't stand for one second to be dressed in pajamas, and he would make this clear in no uncertain terms.

All these nature idioms make our language as colorful as ... well as colorful as this autumn has been. I'll have another serving of crow, please.