| 词源 |
don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Don’t count on profits before you have them in hand. “I woulde not have him to counte his chickens so soone before they be hatcht,” is the first recorded use of this expression, in 1579. Perhaps the idea behind the words goes all the way back to Aesop’s fable of the woman who brings eggs to market, announcing that she will buy a goose with the money she gets for her eggs, that with her profits from the goose she will buy a cow, and so on—but in the excitement of all her anticipations kicks over her basket and breaks her eggs. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched is also used as the moral of Aesop’s tale “The Milkmaid and Her Pail.” |