You found out you were wrong. Now you’re going to have to
admit it and eat a big ole slice of humble pie. Is that a real thing, though, and
does it taste like anything other than humility?
To eat a humble pie, by today’s definition means to swallow
one’s pride, but in medieval times humble pie meant swallowing a whole lot
more. It was derived from the similar
sounding “umble pie” which was a meat pie consisting of organ meats like heart,
liver and lungs. Umble came from French word numble, which meant deer innards.
Despite popular perception, umble or -- numble -- was not a low
dish eaten by peasants because it was made from innards. Back in the day, those cuts of eat were prized, so eating umble pie was not an act of subservience, but a prime cut of
meat. It really doesn't have anything to do with the spirit of the idiom -- it just sounds the same.
Humble and umble are words that developed separately -- umble from French and humble from the
Latin word humilem or lowly. Drop the h as the Brits do and the words sound the
same and are used similarly. You suddenly have a pun for being humble that really
has nothing to do with humility.
As for eating crow, that is an equally humbling image, but
fortunately not a real practice. Crows are a scavenger animal, and therefore deemed
as inedible. An 1850 humor story tells of a dim farmer tricked into eating crow
and is probably the origin of the story. When you say you’ve got to eat crow,
you know you’ve messed up.
The next time you step in it, pull up a chair and eat a big
old slice of humble pie, crow, your hat, whatever you call it, but most importantly
own up to your mistakes, because that’s sometimes harder to swallow than a weird
pie.