Notable Examples of Use
The following examples illustrate notable uses of the idiom after its origin in the 1850s.
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) used this concept as a central metaphor in his short story "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" (1885). Morrowbie Jukes, a European colonist in India, falls into a sand-pit from which he cannot escape. Another man, a native Indian, is also trapped there who catches wild crows and eats them, but Morrowbie in his pride declares, "I shall never eat crow!" After days of nothing to eat, his hunger and desperation finally force him to do what he swore he would never do: literally eat crow.
After incumbent Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in the 1948 United States presidential election despite many media predictions of a Dewey victory, the Washington Post sent a telegram to the victor:
You Are Hereby Invited To A "Crow Banquet" To Which This Newspaper Proposes To Invite Newspaper Editorial Writers, Political Reporters And Editors, Including Our Own, Along With Pollsters, Radio Commentators And Columnists . . . Main Course Will Consist Of Breast Of Tough Old Crow En Glace. (You Will Eat Turkey.)Read more about this topic: Eating Crow
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or examples:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)