pigs might fly
that will never happen
TRANSLATION
pigs might fly = am St. Nimmerleinstag --- GOOGLE INDEX pigs might fly: approximately 500,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
He also ruled out running for the job of mayor of Liverpool, declaring: "PIGS MIGHT FLY."
(BBC News)
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Executive salary restraint? And PIGS MIGHT FLY
(The Sydney Morning Herald - news headline)
(BBC News)
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Executive salary restraint? And PIGS MIGHT FLY
(The Sydney Morning Herald - news headline)
Did you
know?
pigs might fly
humorous idiom
- said when you think that there is no chance at all of something happening
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
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In Lewis Carroll's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice says to the Duchess, "I’ve a right to think." The Duchess then retorts, "Just about as much right as pigs have to fly." There is no firm evidence that this passage is the origin of the expression. But because it's famous, it is frequently cited as the source.
More interesting is that as far back as the mid-16th century, the Scotsman John Withal published an English-Latin dictionary for children containing an appendix of proverbs. One of them was translated as "pigs fly in the air with their tails forward". This seems to be saying that the idea of flying backward is no more absurd than the general idea of a pig being able to fly.
Whatever the source, "pigs might fly" has also been expressed as "pigs could fly if they had wings" and "pigs may fly, but they are very unlikely birds". These types of phrases are called adynatons, a kind of hyperbole in which the exaggeration is so great that it refers to an impossibility. Other examples include:
- My chances of winning the lottery are about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
- Sure I'll let you borrow my Ferrari. When hell freezes over!
- He went to Harvard University? Yeah right, and the Pope is not Catholic.
- I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one of his cheek. (Shakespeare, Henry IV).
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Producers reduce their prices? Pigs might fly!"
humorous idiom
- said when you think that there is no chance at all of something happening
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
In Lewis Carroll's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice says to the Duchess, "I’ve a right to think." The Duchess then retorts, "Just about as much right as pigs have to fly." There is no firm evidence that this passage is the origin of the expression. But because it's famous, it is frequently cited as the source.
More interesting is that as far back as the mid-16th century, the Scotsman John Withal published an English-Latin dictionary for children containing an appendix of proverbs. One of them was translated as "pigs fly in the air with their tails forward". This seems to be saying that the idea of flying backward is no more absurd than the general idea of a pig being able to fly.
Whatever the source, "pigs might fly" has also been expressed as "pigs could fly if they had wings" and "pigs may fly, but they are very unlikely birds". These types of phrases are called adynatons, a kind of hyperbole in which the exaggeration is so great that it refers to an impossibility. Other examples include:
- My chances of winning the lottery are about the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
- Sure I'll let you borrow my Ferrari. When hell freezes over!
- He went to Harvard University? Yeah right, and the Pope is not Catholic.
- I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one of his cheek. (Shakespeare, Henry IV).
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Producers reduce their prices? Pigs might fly!"
