Yesterday I was accused, by me, of possessing an unwillingness to answer a simple question - why do humans say 'I feel peckish'? - especially like when few of us eat worm more than a couple of days a week and that.
Well fuck you me, I will answer ANY question, and with honesty, truthfulness, historic accuracy, scientific relevance, and even human efficiency, the forgotten efficiency.
So here is it, the origin story of using 'peckish' to describe hungry.
'I could eat a horse' had lost favor when it was discovered that horse is a regular ingredient in dog food and glue, two things regularly eaten by precocious children. 'Can I have a pony?' Little kids would beg 'you ate one in art class' the reply would come.
'I'm really, really hungry' had lost favor when it was discovered that it can come across as really, really whiny, I mean, what do you want me to do about it? If you're hungry go forage for fungi or kill a possum like everyone else.
'I'm starving' had lost favor, since it was discovered that parents had begun to reply to this with 'tell the kids in Africa that' and sometimes even add on 'how would you like to be a kid in Africa?' I mean my god parent, stop threatening to invent a parallel universe and just do it already, no one likes a fucking big mouth full of suggestions and no follow through, and make me a fucking sandwich!
Yes it was a difficult period in human existence, and difficult periods are most certainly times for new sayings. That's why so many popular sayings, ones we still use today, were invented during the Dark Ages, sayings like:
- 'Who turned the fucking light out?'
- 'Where are my keys?' And
- 'Didn't toilets used to be a thing? I mean seriously, why the hell are we pooing in pots that we keep in the bedroom? Also what happened to my pet sabertooth? Don't tell me they don't exist anymore either? This is fucking bullshit!'
A new saying was demanded, and so a nation wide international competition of the country was launched to coin new terms, and the suggestions came in thick and fast and wide and throbbing. Some of the initial favorites of the judging panel included:
- 'I want something coming in my mouth thick and fast and wide and throbbing'.
- 'Jam that thick sausage in my mouth'.
- 'I want you to fill me in every hole until I'm so filled up it reaches all the way to my tummy'.
- 'Put it in me, HARD'.
- 'I want my tongue tingling with your delectable quasi-liquid syrup'.
- 'Cum on my face, no no no, in my mouth'. And
- 'Put your penis, no that's NOT a metaphor for something else, I mean your actual penis, in my throat'.
At this point it was discovered that mostly teenage boys were submitting suggestions, and the illiterate branch of the covent of the sisters of the BC era gods, picking suggestions at random, were perhaps not the right people to make the short list.
Although, on a bright side, at least they'd never been able to read the suggestion - 'stick your cock in my cunt and then once it's all the way in slide the rest of your body inside them show me your best jazz hands'. I mean what kind of sicko comes up with that? Those disgusting teenagers.
The project was shut down. As the motion was passed at the committee of idioms few thought it would ever be mentioned again. But 'few' were idiots. Moments after the gavel had been gaveled down on the gavel spot, a man casually said 'well that was a failure, who wants to get something to eat, I'm starving'.
'How would YOU like to live in Africa!' His mother screamed as she immediately burst into the room, and as her handbag rained blows on to his gradually caving in cranium the rest of the committee fought for the gavel in hopes of immediately gaveling it on the gavel spot to officially open a decree to gavel the gavel on the gavel spot to once again gavel open a mission for a new gavel sanctioned idiom search.
This time they vowed to not out source the project, and to come up with the saying themselves. Swearing not to leave that room until a solution was found.
Soon decades had passed. It turned out that few of these men had creative instincts, most had been hired based on their gaveling skills. Creativity they lacked, but dedication they did not.
They began to consider the outside world non-existent, a destroyed wasteland in need of repopulation, repopulated with new ways to say 'I'm hungry' and also new children. Fortunately the mother mentioned earlier, had found caving in her sons head for his failure to think of the poor children of Africa, made her horny.
They turned her into a baby machine, and did the same with her daughters as they came of age. Smart as the men were, the had gaveled the gavel several times on a decree to ban inbreeding, which was voted in at a gavel sanctioned vote of 42-1. The lone stand out being the original mothers nephew, Harry, who was also on the committee.
'But the third generation are only like my second cousins once removed, or some shit, please fellas, I'm like the only one not getting any?' He begged years later, but by then the one gavel had been worn completely out by gaveling it down on the gavel spot for a myriad of gavel sanctioned decisions, so there was nothing they could do.
Harry kept himself busy in other ways, mostly catching birds that had been flying into the hall through a hole in the attic. Over the years the birds became not just the main food source for the committee and their children, but also the main source of teachers for the young mothers on how to care for their children. And over time mothers vomiting into people's mouths became the main way everyone ate.
One day, nearly a century since they had secluded themselves into the grand hall, a small boy, a great-grandson of one of the original committed members saw a bird pecking at the the body of his dead uncle and he casually exclaimed 'yeah, I'm feeling a tad peckish too'.
'That's it, THAT'S it, that's the idiom we've been looking for! Grab the spare gavel from the draw in the desk and gavel it into the gavel spot and with it gavel a decree to gavel in this idiom as an officially gaveled idiom!' Screamed one of the elders.
'You've had a spare gavel the WHOLE time? I'll kill you motherfucker!!!!' Bellowed the now 132 year old Harry. But no one was listening.
No they were pouring out into the streets, expecting to find an empty unpopulated wasteland, but instead finding a thriving world full of cars and planes and televisions.
'I don't get it, I remember distinctly father telling us that they had officially gaveled on human life outside the hall to be forbidden until we come up with a new saying for the desire for food' said one of the committee members to another.
'Me too, although I guess that does explain why we often heard people standing outside the hall doors saying things like "I wonder what's in there", oh and also that time a man walked in, then saw us eating from our daughters mouths and quietly back out' replied another.
'Yeah I guess, but it was gaveled, if you can't honor the gavel then what can you gavel?'
They soon found themselves in a restaurant called KFC, and asked at the counter for 'some bird please, and your finest ladies to puke it into our mouths?'
'Get out' screamed the pregnant teenage behind the counter.
'But we're feeling peckish?' The two pleaded as they were escorted out by security.
As soon as they were gone the people in the restaurant began mocking them, putting on upperclass British accents and saying 'I feel peckish gov'ner' and the new phrase was soon spread around the land, with the only amendment being that the word 'gov'ner' was later dropped when Arnold Scwatzernegger became governer if California and people discovered it was impossible to do an impression of a weird grand hall raised idiom committee member, mocked with an upperclass British accent, doing an impression of an Austrian attempting to sound more American, and the saying 'I'm a tad peckish' and its brothers 'I feel peckish' and 'I'm fucking peckish' fell into the states they are now, adored by people around the globe. Especially in Lithuania for some reason.
And that ladies and gentleman is the completely true story of how that saying came into being. So suck on that me, I'm the answer genius, there is NO question I cannot answer! NEXT!