Love and hate, what a beautiful combination

[venta]

[Poll #1598358]

Please vote before reading on!

According to me, such shivers are caused by a goose walking over your grave. ChrisC insists that this is nonsense, and that the mother exspelunca probably made it up (this is his reaction to approximately 85% of the things I say).

The other day Claudia - who is distressingly Continental, speaking around ten languages competently, and conversing fluently in English, her third language - shivered and blamed it on a goose walking over her grave. See! Colloquial English, as taught in the best Continental schools, was there to back me up! I began planning my victory dance. Depressingly, under questioning, Claudia cracked and admitted she'd got the phrase from me and was thus inadmissible as evidence.

At dance practice last night, I posed the question in the above poll. The crossing of graves was generally mentioned, but with the exception of one other person there was a lot of "A goose? A goose? Don't you mean ghost?"

Except for our youngest new recruit, who looked puzzled and said she wasn't dead yet, thus didn't have a grave. I've always presumed it actually refers to a goose crossing the future site of my burial (as yet unknown to me - or indeed to anyone except, apparently, goosekind).

Incidentally, if anyone has any non-grave-related explanations or, even better, any explanations from non-English-speaking countries I'd love to hear them. Despite her extensive education, Claudia was unable to produce any other countries' explanations. "I don't know. I guess you'd just say you shivered."

I ask you. Don't these Continentals have any imagination?

Comments

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Of course it doesn't make perfect sense. But it does have a certain logic to it.

Start with the idea that it's somehow bad to walk over a grave. Not too wacky an idea - it's (close to?) a human universal to be respectful around the dead, and walking on a person would be bad, so walking on a dead person is probably bad too. So, people avoid walking over graves. Except they can't see where your grave is, or rather, is going to be, so they don't know to avoid it. That's probably bad (though not hugely), and not too ridiculous to imagine some subtle effect being felt by you if you believe there's a tenuous connection between the next world and this one: some inadvertent disrespect to your future eternal resting place might well have some funny effect.

Goosebumps are when you get a bit cold or shivery and your hairs stand up - and they're *goose*bumps because your skin looks a bit like plucked gooseflesh.

Now, imagine you feel a slightly spooky shiver for no apparent reason, causing you goosebumps. "A goose walked over your grave" isn't quite so completely bonkers as an explanation.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

It's usually given in phrase-and-fable as a back formation from goosebumps/pimples/flesh. I'm not sure how that explains the 'rabbit walked...' variant I just found, though. :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Rabbits don't walk! They hop!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I know! It makes no sense. And that's clearly the bit to focus on in this whole mess. :D

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hey, these things are important! It's all a matter of plausibility.

Geese might walk over graves and cause shivers - I have no direct evidence to the contrary. Besides, if you weren't willing to admit that sort of causal relationship, you'd probably say "I shivered"!

But rabbits don't walk. Demonstrably. I demand my old wives tales be more carefully observed!

:)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had never thought it might be linked with goosebumps (or 'goosepimples' as I know them, but that's a whole nother line of inquiry). Makes sense.

Or of course it might just be propa-gander...
*rimshot*

[venta.livejournal.com]

Or of course it might just be propa-gander...

Please cite your sauce for that.

(I call them goosepimples, too.)

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

There are some quacking good references in the works of Bill Shakespeare, waddle really make the point, although they are sometimes omitted in modern producktions.