Fry’s English Delight on Radio 4 this week gave an origin for the phrase sick as a parrot. I have already forgotten what it was – something to do with Tottenham Hotspur & Arsenal I think
However it did remind me of one of those niggling questions to which I should l like to know the answer
It must have been in the late 1970s. I was reading a summary of items in the European media about environmental pollution. One was about an incident in a small town in Germany involving a leakage of something a bit nasty. A nearby resident was interviewed & quoted as saying I felt as sick as a parrot
The summary was a translation, I did not have the original & my German is nonexistent anyway. But I still wonder whether the phrase could possibly have German origin, or if the translator was just using a bit of colloquial licence, or if it was just an example of the universal language of football
