Chip on the shoulder

Origin of: Chip on the shoulder

Chip on the shoulder

To have a chip on one’s shoulder means to harbour a grievance or to have an inferiority complex and dates from the mid-19th century. There are two theories about its origin. The first is that it derives from the Royal Naval dockyards during the early 18th century when it was common practice for dockyard workers to take home off-cuts of timber, which were called chips. The story goes that the practice was abused, forcing the authorities to first curtail and then ban the practice. Dockyard workers then went on strike and there were reports of many of them still walking out of the shipyards with ‘chips on their shoulders’ in defiance of the ban. This is a lovely story combining chips on shoulders with an underlying grievance. The only concern is that there is no written record of such an expression for the next 100 years or so. The expression actually first surfaced in America during the early 19th century, when the placing of a wood chip on a shoulder represented a challenge to an adversary to knock it off, thereby initiating a bout of fisticuffs. The expression then only became figurative for a grievance, in the sense we know it today, from the mid-19th century onwards. The latter etymological theory is supported by the OED and, until the mystery of the 100-year gap is resolved, the naval dockyard story remains highly dubious.