Pushing up the Daisies

Posted by ESC on December 08, 2003

In Reply to: Pushing up the Daisies posted by Ditfos on December 08, 2003

: I know the meaning of this, but I would like to know the origin.

DAISIES, TO COUNT or BE UNDER THE - "To die and be buried. Daisies and other flowers of the field have figured large in a number of botanical images of death and burial. Daisy imagery, like the flower itself, seems to be the commonest and to have originated with the expression, 'to turn one's toes to the daisies' (to decay). The famous 'Babes in the Woods,' in 'The Ingoldsby Legends' , urges us to 'be kind to those dear little folks/When our toes are turned up to the daisies.' By 1866, George Macdonald further sweetened this already saccharine expression, by saying, 'I shall very soon hide my name under some daisies.' Commoner and more current forms used in America are 'counting daisies' and 'pushing up daisies'." From "Wordsworth Book of Euphemism" by Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver (Wordsworth Editions, Hertfordshire, 1995)