A Bird In the Hand...

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is worth two in the bush...

A Bird In the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush...

What does that even mean?? My advocacy worker tried to explain it me but I ended up with to many birds, not enough bushes & still no idea. Why was the bird in the bush? & why would you have one in your hand? Was it a protected species? What genealogy of bush was it? Evergreen? Why...

Or even...2 birds in the bush being worth 1 in the hand?

Why were there not 4 birds in the bush & one in each hand? Is 2 optimal? Would it do the same thing if there was like, loads of birds in the bush? What would happen? I need to know the conclusion.

The number of birds in the bush all depends on how big the bush in question is.

It means that something you already have (in hand), is worth more than stuff you might have in the future (in the bush).

I think the saying must come from hunting. But it's a really stupid thing for a spectrum advocacy worker to say, when s/he should know that we take things literally. It's their "bad" for saying it that way, not yours for missing this one.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilder ... es-audubon
John Audubon shot every bird he painted--back then it was common to shoot birds.
It is way easier to identify a bird when it is in your hand.

Later, a fellow by the name of Roger Tory Peterson came up the with concept of "field marks" and descriptive drawings that allowed you to identify birds without shooting them first.
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/pet ... arks.shtml

So, back in the bad old days, you couldn't be sure of what bird you saw until you shot it and had it in your hand. True, there are big birds that are easy to identify, but they usually aren't hiding in bushes.

These days, people who study birds are called "bird watchers" to reinforce the fact that we no longer shoot birds in the process of identification.

You need to be an Aspie to remember all that.

If you're forging for food (like you're shipwrecked on deserted island) you will probably want some protein to supplement your diet of coconuts and berries. So you will probably try to catch some birds.

Any bird you already have in your hand (ie already caught and thus read to toss into the cooking pot) is worth more than than the any bird still wild and free over there in the bushes.

That is: a dollar you have in the bank is worth more than than several dollars that you hope to win in the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes.

These days many NTs don't know these sayings as people just don't use much.

I'm sort of a word smith. I looked up idioms so that I'd know them.

My mom always said, "as useless as teats on a hen." Now I thought she was saying hand.....

Don't know - not into bird accounting...

It means; it's better to be content with what you have than to risk losing everything by seeking to get more.

There is no actual bird or bushes. It's one of those ones with some weird historical meaning that makes little sense nowadays.

I had a similar conversation yesterday. I told my brother something I was going to try to do to make some extra money. I am going to try to sell some stuff on ebay. He said, "That's a shot in the arm." I was thinking, what does that have to do with getting a shot? He had to explain to me that it was an expression and it meant, that it was a good idea for making some money right away but not the best idea for trying to keep making money in the long term.

Thank you

Welp! I learned about birds and bushes AND shots in ones arm today

I personally LOVE idioms I don't ever use them because I think there are better ways of expressing information. Moreover, people usually just don't know these damned phrases anymore- people don't use them and they aren't particularly clever or anything it is literally something you know or don't and if you don't know it then people explain it to you and sort of thats it.
With the proper explanation I don't think this is a very hard thing for most Aspies/Autistics to grasp. It's like secret not-so-secret code that some people kind of know that's been very poorly disseminated lol.

This one actually made sense to me because I pictured how hard it would be to catch a bird with my hand. So if I already had caught one with my hand, trying to get the one in the bush in order to have both would too likely result in my letting the one I already have in my hand escape - then I'd have NO birds. Since it was so hard to get the first one, it would be equally hard to get the other one even to replace it - or maybe it wouldn't, but in any case, it's extra work just to give up one bird for another. At least, that's how I understood it.

Amazing!

I didnt know it was possible to NOT understand a simple obvious expression like that!

Its a very vivid image. you're starving caveman. You got a meal in your hand (one bird). Therefore its worth more to you than the two birds "in the bush" (still free) that you havent caught yet.

How is that NOT obvious?

There are plenty of other idioms that are a lot more opaque than that (a stitch in time saves nine. Give it the whole nine yards, between the devil and the deep blue sea).

Maybe because the OP was focusing less on visualizing/imagining the task and more on the numbers of birds in hand vs. bush, etc. That would be my guess.