Liliputin -6034

On National Oyster Day feels every oyster as happy as a clam ... "
Ernest Hemingway

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2025/03/08/5867


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August 5th
National Oyster Day

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As happy as a clam
What's the meaning of the phrase 'As happy as a clam'?
Very happy and content.

What's the origin of the phrase 'As happy as a clam'?
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 mollusk 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:


“It never occurred to him to be discontented… He was as happy as a clam.”


The history and origin story of the wordle game
The first definitive record that I can find of the ‘high water’ version is from the US newspaper The Bangor Daily Whig And Courier, December 1841:

“Your correspondent has given an interesting, and, undoubtedly correct explanation of the expression: ‘As happy as a clam at high water.'”

However, several biographies of General Robert E. Lee state that he used the expression ‘as happy as a clam at high water’ on more than one occasion. One such states that he included it in a letter that he wrote in 1833, which would pre-date the above by a few years. I can’t find a record of the letter in question so the account is second-hand, but it is entirely plausible that Lee would have used the expression at that time.

The expression was well-enough known in the USA by the late 1840s for it to have been included in John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary Of Americanisms – A Glossary of Words And Phrases Usually Regarded As Peculiar To The United States, 1848:

“As happy as a clam at high water,” is a very common expression in those parts of the coast of New England where clams are found.

Also in 1848, the Southern Literary Messenger from Richmond, Virginia expressed the opinion that the phrase “is familiar to everyone”.

See other ‘as x as y similes‘.


Ezoic
See other phrases that were coined in the USA.

The history of “As happy as a clam” in printed materials
Trend of as happy as a clam in printed material over time

Related phrases and meanings
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About the Author
Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.
Gary Martin
Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

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Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc. The word is often applied only to those that are deemed edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams have two shells of equal size connected by two adductor muscles and have a powerful burrowing foot.[1] They live in both freshwater and marine environments; in salt water they prefer to burrow down into the mud and the turbidity of the water required varies with species and location; the greatest diversity of these is in North America.[2]

Clams in the culinary sense do not live attached to a substrate (whereas oysters and mussels do) and do not live near the bottom (whereas scallops do). In culinary usage, clams are commonly eaten marine bivalves, as in clam digging and the resulting soup, clam chowder. Many edible clams such as palourde clams are ovoid or triangular;[3] however, razor clams have an elongated parallel-sided shell, suggesting an old-fashioned straight razor.[4]

Some clams have life cycles of only one year, whilst at least one has been aged to more than 500 years.[5] All clams have two calcareous shells or valves joined near a hinge with a flexible ligament and all are filter feeders.