Happy As A Clam

Why Are Clams So Happy?

So my friend Rick mentioned last night that he was as “happy as a clam” in a conversation and that got me thinking. Why exactly are clams so happy? After a quick Google search I found phrases.org.uk which gave me this reasoning:

Why would clams be happy? It has been suggested that open clams give the appearance of smiling. The derivation is more likely to come from the fuller version of the phrase, now rarely heard – ‘as happy as a clam at high water’. Hide tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators; surely the happiest of times in the bivalve mollusc world. The phrase originated in the north-eastern states of the USA in the early 19th century. The earliest citation that I can find is from a frontier memoir The Harpe’s Head – A Legend of Kentucky, 1833.

So there you have it. Clams are happy because they “LOOK” happy at a certain angle. I’m not convinced of this though. When it really boils down to it (mmm boiled clam….) hundreds of thousands of clams are massacred on a yearly basis for our culinary delight. They are a species whose very existence has come down to being grown and exterminated by humanity for two purposes- food and money. The money end of things of course being forced out of the water so that those wonderful pearls that are found within them can be harvested and turned into jewelry. Oh the proud mollusk is a great creature and one of them was even found to be the oldest living creature on the planet (until I assume it was sauteed before the pearl it had within was raped from it.) One of these days this noble species will rise up from our starving need for all things tasty and overthrow the shackles that we have placed upon them! Until then I will of course gladly munch on their succulent meat on any occasion I am out for seafood. (I wonder if Attack Of The Killer Clams has been made into a movie yet? …and if not why not?)

[picture via: a random flickr search.]

Tagged as: Happy As A Clam, Quotes