Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'

Subject: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 02:32 PM

My lady friend just called from work and they want to know, " Where did 'Happy As A Clam" come from? Any ideas? I figured I'd give Mudcat 1st shot at it. Where else could I look?

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 02:37 PM

Being from clam country myself. . . .

Voila!!

Keep clam.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 02:43 PM

Very good Don!

Typically, in my case, I figured that a real clam didn't have a "happy" emotion and immediately moved the word "clam" over to it's sexual meaning where "happy as a clam" made a modicum of sense.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,rick s
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 02:46 PM

Not sure, but my understanding of the entire phrase is "Happy as a Clam at High Tide," meaning safe from the clam diggers or sea birds. Eventually it was shortened in seafaring communities to Happy as a Clam, figuring that everyone knew the rest.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 02:47 PM

Abbreviated from "Happy as a clam at high tide (or high water)" This appears in American print in the 1830s-1840s.
From the OED (1987 revision).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 06:54 PM

Thanks, I knew I could count on this crew.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Haruo
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 06:58 PM

Ode to Puget Sound immortalizes (or at least geriatricizes) the variant "happy as a butter clam". The page title incorrectly (my fault - note to self: fix that) identifies it as "Acres of Clams".

Haruo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 07:05 PM

A real Don Juan's dream......Acres of Clams!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 07:18 PM

Spaw, don't go mixin' up clams with arsters! Eastern Shoreez for oysters.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 07:34 PM

I, like Don, grew up in the great Northwest! And also, like Don, we shared many a tune and tale with the late and great Ivar Haugland. Ivar named his first seafood restaurant "Acres of Clams." The mear mention of "clams" sets my mouth to watering. Out here, we've many varieties: butter clams, cockles, razors, horse, steamers, on and on. As Ivar used to say, when the tide is out, the table is set! Just a little piece of information that any Nothwest native who is also a clamdigger will recognise, the best clam digging possible is when the clams are covered by about two feet of water. That's when they show their tiny necks and you can barehand them! But, as you might imagine, you pay a price ... soaking wet, cold, dead family members.
CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM

For those interested in "The Old Settler," or "Acres of Clams," see DT and thread 3507 for this old song (pub. 1902) by Francis D. Henry.
Original Sheet music and text in Lingenfelter and Dwyer, 1968, "Songs of the American West," pp. 554-556. The text in the DT is correct, but Henry is not credited.
Old Settler

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 08:17 PM

I concur with rick s. and Q. I just read the same thing this morning in a trivia book.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 01:19 AM

Nothing new to add... except a scholarly reference:

Random House
HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG
The only Historical Dictionary of Slang,
Spanning Three Hundred Years of Slang Use in America
By J. E. Lighter
Vol. I, 1994 p.427

happy as a clam very happy; Quite contented.
1834 in Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms 1841 Spirit of times (July17) 229. a 1870 in Dictionary of Americanism Happy as a clam (in the mud at high water). 1961 Barbeau Ikon21: Mom's happy as a clam to have me home.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 01:22 AM

Ranger Steve -

PLEASE post the information (title, publisher, year, page) and quotation from the trivia book.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: leprechaun
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 01:32 AM

I love clams.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: mg
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 01:32 AM

I live on a clam beach...it is most interesting to see the clammers there at night...they are right out in the surf...I wouldn't go there in broad daylight in summer...mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Greycap
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 02:48 AM

Oh, I feel better now! I've always wondered and meant to get around to asking someone. Thanks to all.

Subject: ADD LYR: Sam the Clam
From: semi-submersible
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 08:55 PM

Can anyone locate the Canadian schoolchildren's songbook in which this song was published c. late '60s? My mother wrote it. I sing it to my son, to a tune (I'll transcribe one day I hope) something like that to which Mom sang it. There may have been music published for it (possibly by Philip Lamarsh?) in that elusive book.

Sam the Clam
by Iris Griffith
(If there's a copyright, 1966-70 would be the approximate date.)

Oh, there once was a clam, and his name was Sam,
        And he lived with his wife and daughter;
And every night, when the tide was right
        They danced by the light of the starfish bright.
They danced by the light of the starfish bright,
        Under the cool clear water.

As they dug one day in the sand so gray,
        He found a silver dollar.
He tried to shout, but the tide was out,
        So he gave a little gurgle and he hopped about,
He gave a little gurgle and he hopped about,
        'Cause he didn't know how to holler.

When the tide came in, he began to grin,
        With a smile so sweet and snappy.
And since that day, all the seamen say,
        There hasn't been a clam that doesn't grin that way.
There hasn't been a clam that doesn't grin that way,
        And that's why clams are happy.


Our family lives by a clam beach. It's mostly rock and gravel here, studded with boulders, but there are lots of clams between them. Mom's mom, Agnes, was addicted to clam digging. For When I was in school the price went pretty high - above 50 cents a pound - and Grandma dug her way to Europe (earned a trip for two to Rome) that way.

Low tides happen in daylight in summer, but plankton bloom profusely then, and filter feeders like clams and oysters take up toxins from some of the plankton they eat. The poison doesn't seem to harm the shellfish, but we have to lay off them until winter, when the low tides only occur in the dead of night. My childhood memories include getting up at a chilly 3am or some such dreary hour, to put on gumboots and layers of old clothes (clamming clothes tend to get smelly) and go out with a clam gun (sort of potato fork) and hissing gas lantern to see whether I could fill a 20# bucket or more. It was a great way for kids to learn about discipline, effort, and rewards.

Now, of course, the rules have changed. In this part of the coast, they only open a few small areas for commercial clam digging, a few days a year, and you can only reach them by boat. Clam licenses cost a mint, so even though the price per pound is now in the dollars, hardly anyone can make a living that way any more. A sport fishing license does not even allow you to dig half a bucketful.

Dreaming of clam chowder,
Maureen

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: LadyJean
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 01:17 AM

Does anyone else remember the folk band Clam Chowder. I was always a fan.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 02:27 PM

Walking Eagle - eat enough oysters and you'll keep a clam happy - so they say. ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 02:36 PM

Not quite clams, but a cople of verses from W S Gilbert's Etiquette

For Peter Gray, and Somers too, though certainly in trade,
Were properly particular about the friends they made;
And somehow thus they settled it without a word of mouth --
That Gray should take the northern half, while Somers took the South.

On Peter's portion oysters grew -- a delicacy rare,
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn't bear,
On Somers' side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn't eat, because it always made him sick.


Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Origins of 'Happy As A Clam'
From: georgeward
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 01:30 PM

My dad always used the complete comparison, including "high tide." Even though it is straightforward folk wisdom to those of us who grew up close enough to water to have webbed feet, I've always wondered - and still do - whether there is a literary source back there somewhere (which may, in turn, have appropriated it from popular speech).

More importantly, nobody has yet mentioned another of Walt (Pogo) Kelly's contributions to American political thought (is that an oxymoron?)...The Public Clammer.