Idioms & Slang : Squirrel

Another of nature’s creatures, the squirrel, provides us with a few fun idiomatic expressions.

-to squirrel something away: If I was making more money, I would squirrel it away for an occasion when I could really use it. In other words, I would save it for a future use.

-If you think somebody is very foolish, you might say, “He (or she) ain’t* got the brains God gave a squirrel.” You mean that this person is not as smart as a squirrel.

-If you come across someone who’s ineffective or misguided but somehow despite their mistakes, they sometimes manage, though luckily,  to be correct you might use the following proverb: “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”

* ‘Ain’t’ is a colloquial expression and a contraction that comes from “am not” but is also used for other forms such as in the above expression: “is not,” “are not,” “has not” or “have not.” It is not considered to be correct grammar and for years the term wasn’t to be found in a dictionary. It was (and still by some) considered as vulgar and common speech used by the uneducated.