What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Count your chickens before they are hatched’?
Many of the proverbial words of advice that have lasted the test of time begin with ‘don’t’. We are warned not to ‘keep a dog and bark ourselves’, ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’, ‘change horses in mid-stream’ etc. ‘Don’t count your chickens’ is one of the oldest, and possibly the wisest, of these. The thought was recorded in print by Thomas Howell in New Sonnets and pretty Pamphlets, 1570:
Counte not thy Chickens that vnhatched be,
Waye wordes as winde, till thou finde certaintee
Samuel Butler continued the pleasing rhyming in his expression of the proverbial advice, in the narrative poem Hudibras, 1664:
To swallow gudgeons ere they’re catch’d,
And count their chickens ere they’re hatched.
See other ‘Don’t…’ proverbs:
Don’t cast your pearls before swine
Don’t change horses in midstream
Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face
Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself
Don’t let the bastards grind you down
Don’t let the cat out of the bag
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
Don’t put the cart before the horse
Don’t shut the stable door after the horse has bolted
Don’t throw good money after bad
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater