More [BLANK] than you can shake a stick at

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15 Jun 2005, 8:54 am

I am pretty good at expressions now - The first time I hear them I get someone to explain them to me later on and they make sense. But I just don't understand this one. Can anyone explain what the stick shaking means?

For instance: Bill Gates has more money than you can shake a stick at". I know it means he has a lot of money but I can't see any point to the rest of the sentence. Any takers?

Feather
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15 Jun 2005, 9:15 am

It's one of those expressions where no-one is sure of the origins. I found this explanation with a bit of googling:

Quote:

Its recorded history began—at least, so far as the Oxford English Dictionary knows—in the issue of the Lancaster Journal of Pennsylvania dated 5 August 1818: “We have in Lancaster as many Taverns as you can shake a stick at”. Another early example is from Davy Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East of 1835: “This was a temperance house, and there was nothing to treat a friend that was worth shaking a stick at”. A little later, in A Book of Vagaries by James K Paulding of 1868, this appears: “The roistering barbecue fellow swore he was equal to any man you could shake a stick at”.
The modern use of the phrase always exists as part of the extended and fixed phrase “more ... than you can shake a stick at”, meaning an abundance, plenty. The phrase without the “more than” element is rather older, but not by much.
Shaking a stick at somebody, of course, is a threatening gesture, or at least one of defiance. So to say that you have shaken a stick at somebody is to suggest that person is an opponent, perhaps a worthy one. The sense in the second and third quotations above seem to fit this idea: “nothing worth shaking a stick at” means nothing of value; “equal to any man you could shake a stick at” means that the speaker is equal to any man of consequence.
Where it comes from can only be conjecture. One possibility that has been put forward is that it derives from the counting of farm animals, which one might do by pointing one’s stick at each in turn. So having more than one can shake one’s stick at, or tally, would imply a great number. This doesn’t fit the early examples, though, which don’t have any idea of counting about them. Another idea is that it comes from battle, in which one might shake a stick at one’s vanquished enemy. This could possibly have led into the early usages.
Following publication of this piece in the World Wide Words newsletter, Suzan Hendren and Sherwin Cogan suggested that it might have come from the Native American practice of counting coup, in which merit was gained by touching a vanquished enemy in battle. In that case, “too many to shake a stick at” might indicate a surplus of fallen enemies, and “not worth shaking a stick at” would equate a person with “an enemy who is so cowardly or worthless that there is no merit to be gained from counting coup on him”, as Sherwin Cogan put it. An intriguing idea, but there’s no evidence that I know of.
Let me summarise: nobody knows for sure.

From this website:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sha2.htm

Prometheus
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15 Jun 2005, 3:21 pm

Imagine a crowd of people. Imagine more people than can see you shake your fist at them. This is what I think it means. More people than you can possibly imagine.

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16 Jun 2005, 10:14 am

Thanks guys. I have heard it about Bill Gates and his money. I can imagine his money but I would not want to start litigation against him because of the legal represenation his money could demand. If shaking a stick at him means this then I think I understand the expression now

I have used the expression to describe inanimate objects that are in abudance but I suppose this is wrong with this definition? I.E. More cheese than you can shake a stick at. I wouldn't feel threatened by the cheese but I suppose I could use it with your description Prometheus. More cheese than I could imagine.

larsenjw92286
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16 Jun 2005, 10:27 am

Woo:

Have you been watching reruns of "Match Game" lately?

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16 Jun 2005, 10:44 am

What is match game? - I am in the UK so we might not get it over here.

larsenjw92286
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16 Jun 2005, 10:50 am

Oh, you're British. They call it "Blankety Blanks" over there. The object of the game was to match six celebrities when filling in "blanks" of humorous statements. I was just trying to inject a little humor in that post. We could play our own version of "Match Game" in this thread!

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16 Jun 2005, 11:08 am

KEWL. Go on then... You start...

larsenjw92286
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16 Jun 2005, 11:37 am

This can be done, but this would be a very repetitive endeavor in that I would give a statement, and then other people would post replies to this thread and say, "I had the same thought you did." This would be very strange since people would hypothetically log in and expect to see the same reply to this thread. The frame of mind of us when other people post replies to certain threads should be unexpected. Are you sure you want to do this?

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16 Jun 2005, 11:51 am

How do you inject the unexpected quantity into a game on a format like this? As soon as the page changes people will start saying the same responses as on the previous page.... Hmmmm...

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16 Jun 2005, 11:53 am

I suppose it could be a poll with all the obvious answers, and people could vote. If they thought of another answer they could then specify it in the thread.

larsenjw92286
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16 Jun 2005, 11:57 am

Exactly. If people were to log in and see the same responses to the statements, they would wonder what the heck is going on! Sorry, but this is not a good idea.

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