Friday, March 23, 2007

Henpecked

David's Definition for the May edition of Community News. I wonder if there'll be negative feedback for this one.



Henpecked

Chickens are nasty creatures. It's no wonder we consider them food instead of pets. They peck at each other, and I'm not talking about a love peck. Under some conditions, such as overcrowding, they may even peck each other to death. If one chicken is injured, the others may peck it to death. Under more normal conditions, they have a social hierarchy, called a pecking order, in which the top chicken pecks any other chicken it wants to, and each chicken pecks the chickens below it and is pecked by those above it. The ones at the bottom can be pecked by any of the others but can never peck back. A husband with a nagging wife can find himself at the bottom rung of his household pecking order -- cowed, dominated, unable to peck back. He is said to be henpecked.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Oh, you've done it now. I can see how this is gonna end:

LOCAL AUTHOR FOUND PECKED TO DEATH; CHICKENS DENY INVOLVEMENT

I mean taking on nits is one thing, but chickens? Madness, I say!

David said...

"It's just coincidence that we didn't like his books," said spokeschick Henny Penny. "He was just a minor pro, anyway."

The editor said there probably would be feedback, but not as much as if I'd defined "pussywhipped". I told here that I was thinking of giving that as a synonym but came to my senses in time. She replied that that was good, because she probably would have published it.