A Little Bird Told Me - Say What?!
Clip: Season 2023 | 3m 55sVideo has Closed Captions
Learn the secret of this animal idiom "a little bird told me".
You might say “a little bird told me” to mean that you got information from someone... but you're not going to say who that person is. But where does that saying come from? Learn how this animal idiom has been used across history in this episode of Say What?! -- from Shakespeare to ancient Egypt!
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Camp TV is a local public television program presented by THIRTEEN PBS
A Little Bird Told Me - Say What?!
Clip: Season 2023 | 3m 55sVideo has Closed Captions
You might say “a little bird told me” to mean that you got information from someone... but you're not going to say who that person is. But where does that saying come from? Learn how this animal idiom has been used across history in this episode of Say What?! -- from Shakespeare to ancient Egypt!
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[upbeat music] - [Narrator] Have you ever heard someone say, "A little bird told me?"
Any idea what that means?
- [Child] Maybe it means you know a lot about birds.
[bird chirps] - [Child 2] Your voice sounds like a bird?
- [Child 3] It means something like, you don't wanna say who told you that.
- [Narrator] Exactly.
You might say, "a little bird told me" to mean that you got information from someone, but you're not gonna say who that person is.
[bell ringing] - Hey, I heard at recess that you got picked to design the new school mascot.
Can I interview you for the weekly news show?
- Um, sure, but how'd you find out I got picked to make the design?
- Um, they didn't want me to use their name.
So let's just say a little bird told me.
- [Narrator] We'll get back to this, but first, why do people say "a little bird told me?"
- [Lemur] Yeah, why not lemurs?
A little lemur told me.
- [Narrator] Well, people have been writing about birds sharing special information for quite some time.
The playwright, William Shakespeare, used it in a play first performed in year 1600.
[bird chirps] - I hear a bird so sing.
- [Narrator] Long before that, the Vikings had a story about a prince [fire breathing] who slayed a dragon.
- [Sigurd] Suddenly, I could understand what the birds around me were saying.
- [Birds] Caw, you are in danger.
Your friends will betray you.
- [Narrator] Many believe the first written example of this saying was way back over 2,000 years ago in the Bible where people were warned not to say bad things about others.
- [Birds] Because us birds will let everyone know what you are saying, ooh.
[whimsical music] - [Narrator] Okay, so people have been writing about birds sharing news for over 2,000 years, but why birds?
- Oh, we've been spreading the news for a lot longer than you might think.
- [Narrator] It turns out that birds, specifically pigeons, and more specifically messenger pigeons, have long been trained by people to carry written messages attached to their legs for hundreds of miles.
- [Old Time Announcer] Thanks to an amazing sense of direction, these mighty messengers have been delivering our news for centuries.
[drumline music] From World War I... - [Soldier] We sent military updates from the battlefield.
- [Old Time Announcer] ...way back to the very first Olympic games in ancient Greece almost 3,000 years ago.
- [Athlete] Every athlete had a pigeon, and if we won our event, our bird would fly to our hometown to share the good news.
- [Old Time Announcer] ..all the way back to ancient Egypt over 5,000 years ago.
- [Pigeon] We were one of the first known groups of pigeons to fly messages from place to place, sort of like delivering the mail today.
- [Narrator] So it's possible the saying, "a little bird told me" was first inspired by people receiving messages delivered by, you guessed it, little birds.
[breaking news music] - So with the school's permission, we are proud to officially reveal Noah's design for the new school mascot... - the mighty messenger.
[crowd cheers] [upbeat music] [beep]
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