I sometimes catch myself wondering where words or phrases come from and then try to figure out a common sense sort of way that it could have come about.  For instance “Beaver Sharn”, most of us know exactly what that is, but it has not been around forever.  It came about when Tracker and I were coming back to rendezvous camp with a couple of sticks we retrieved from a beaver dam.  And during our conversation, we coined the term, beaver sharn, because the sticks had actually been sharned of their bark by a beaver, you know, “sharned” as opposed to “shaved”.  Everyone knows that a beaver can’t shave anything, especially with those big old teeth of theirs.

Well last night I thought I would look up the phrase “Half a mind”…the net is full of stuff about it but nobody has any information on where it was first used or how it came to be.  I have half a mind to write something and make it up for everyone to use in the future.  Sort of like Al Gore inventing the internet.  I may get around to that some day, when I have half a mind to do it.

As I researched I came across another very well used phrase, “within a hares breath”.  You have heard it, “I came within a hares breath of pulling the trigger on that big old buck”.

Actually, the saying has nothing to do with the breath of a rabbit.  Rather is has everything to do with the thickness of a hair.  A “Hairs Breadth”, breadth being the thickness of the hair from one side to the other, straight across.

Over time the saying has been modified to many other things but the main meaning is still the same.  RCH, BCH, Whisker, Frog hair….all varying in thickness, but all so very close to a collision or situation of whatever it is you are talking about.  Can you imagine two trains just missing each other by a Frogs hair?  Man that was a close call!  And for the same trains to miss each other by a Whisker…heck compared to a Frogs hair, a Whisker isn’t even close.  Good grief, why even talk about it?

To use the phrase “Hares Breath” is rather ridiculous when talking about close calls. ” I almost ran off the road, I was withing a hares breath of going over the edge”.  That really does not make any sense at all once you know the real meaning of the term does it?  I suppose it could mean some sort of distance if the rabbit was breathing out hot breath in a cold environment and you could see his breath.  Let’s say the rabbit just woke up on a very cold morning and took a deep breath…the vapor would probably leave his mouth or nose about an inch, but then get the little guy running away from a coyote and once safe he breaths out of his mouth, the breath would probably extend maybe 5 inches from his mouth.

In order to use the “hares breath” idea, you would have to clarify whether the rabbit was running or stopped or stopped after running or making babies or whatever rabbits do, like “Man that was within a hares breath after the hare had been chased by a Willow Creeker in the Crawfords”.

Nuff said.

Bears Butt

Nov. 12, 2012