词源 |
poor as Job’s turkey. Though the Book of Job doesn’t men- tion his having any turkeys, Job certainly was poor and misera- ble, which inspired 19th-century Canadian humorist Thomas Haliburton to coin this expression. Haliburton, whose contri- butions to American English were considerable, wrote in one of his Sam Slick tales about Job’s turkey, which had but one feather and was so weak with hunger that it had to support it- self against the barn when it wanted to gobble. |