A wigwam for a goose's bridle is a phrase, once popular in Australia, meaning "none of your business". A common usage is in response to an inquiry such as Q. "What are you making?", A. "A wigwam for a goose's bridle". The rejoinder was a code for "Mind your own business" and children acquired this pragmatic knowledge after repeated discourse with their parents ended with this response. It was a common family saying.
The phrase was also in use in New Zealand and more generally by English speakers, for example in an 1836 magazine article referring to Calcutta and an exchange with a sailor.
Originally, the phrase was "a whim-wham for a goose’s bridle", with "whim-wham" a word meaning "a fanciful or fantastic object". The phrase was deliberately absurd as a goose would never wear a bridle. Folk etymology converted the word "whim-wham"—a word that was no longer much used—to "wigwam", an Ojibwa word for a domed single-room dwelling used by Native Americans. This change retained the phrase's absurd meaning and sense.
The phrase is believed to be less popular than it once was.
Other variations of this phrase are:
- "Whim wham for ducks to sit on." (Stated by a woman of English heritage, first of six born (1907) in the US, in Rocks Springs, Wyoming)
Famous quotes containing the words goose and/or bridle:
“They give me goose pimples on top of my goose pimples.”
—Griffin Jay, Maxwell Shane (1905–1983)
“Thou madest loose grace unkind;
Gavest bridle to their words, art to their pace.
O Honour, it is thou
That makest that stealth, which Love doth free allow.”
—Torquato Tasso (1544–1595)