APAD:Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite 'em

 

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite 'em'?

Everyone is preyed up[on by someone, who in turn has someone preying on them.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite 'em'?

This humurous proverbial saying sounds of fairly recent coinage and of the kind that is associated with 20th century writers like Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker. However, it is much older than that.

It is usually listed as being coined by the English mathematician Augustus De Morgan in the 19th century.

That's true up to a point. To find the actual source we need to go back a century again. De Morgan gave us the line in the form we now use it, but he copied it from an earlier form of the same thought, which was coined by the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift.

The two forms of the proverb are - Swift's original, from his satirical poem On Poetry: A Rapsody, 1733:

The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum:
Thus ev'ry Poet, in his Kind
Is bit by him that comes behind

De Morgan's variant, from his book A Budget of Paradoxes, 1872, is:

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

所有跟帖： 

• 中文版：螳螂捕蝉 黄雀在后 -盈盈一笑间- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 11:27:28

• 螳螂捕雀，蝉在后 :-) -7grizzly- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 14:51:10

• 这个更符合今天的APAD ：） -盈盈一笑间- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 18:00:35

• 大鱼吃小鱼，小鱼吃虾米 -天边一片白云- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 11:47:15

• 小鱼吃大鱼，虾米吃小鱼 :-) -7grizzly- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 14:51:58

• infinitum! -卫宁- ♂ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 13:52:56

• First saw the De Morgan version in college. -7grizzly- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/12/2023 postreply 14:53:06