Black sheep
In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness.[1] It derived from the atypical and unwanted presence of other black individuals in flocks of white sheep.
The idiom is also found in other languages, e.g., French, Serbian, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Portuguese, Bosnian, Greek, Turkish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian and Polish. The same concept is illustrated in some other languages by the phrase "white crow": for example belaya vorona (белая ворона) in Russian and kalag-e sefid (کلاغ سفید) in Persian.
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Idiomatic usage
The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a flock of white sheep due to a genetic process of recessive traits. Black wool was considered commercially undesirable because it could not be dyed.[1] In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil.[2] In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, though the term is usually given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics or lack thereof deemed undesirable by that group.[3]
A variant form, "the red sheep of the family", was used by Jessica Mitford to describe herself, a communist in a family of aristocratic fascists.[4]
Biological origin
In sheep, a white fleece is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off, thus obscuring any other color that may be present. As a result, a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous for black, in about 25% of cases they will produce a black lamb. In fact in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this. Some breeds of sheep (such as the Hebridean, Ouessant and Black Welsh Mountain) are normally black.
Other uses
In psychology, the black sheep effect refers to the tendency of a group to treat or evaluate members of one's own group who behave in a way such as to jeopardize the group's image, more harshly than similarly unlikable members of another group, while considering the former group as a whole to be superior to, or better or more deserving than the latter.[5]
See also
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Look up black sheep in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Black swan theory
- The Ugly Duckling
- Scapegoat
- Glossary of sheep husbandry: see entry for "black wool".
References
- ^ a b Ammer, Christine (1997). American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780395727744. http://books.google.com/?id=9re1vfFh04sC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=american+heritage+dictionary+%22black+sheep%22. Retrieved 2007-11-13.
- ^ Sykes, Christopher Simon (1983). Black Sheep. New York: Viking Press. p. 11. ISBN 0670172766.
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992. http://www.answers.com/topic/black-sheep. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
- ^ "Red Sheep: How Jessica Mitford found her voice" by Thomas Mallon 16 Oct 2007 New Yorker.
- ^ Black sheep effect Psychology Lexicon. Retrieved on January 4, 2008.
External links
- Exploration of the etymology of the phrase "black sheep of the family"
- "The black sheep effect: Judgmental extremity towards ingroup members in inter-and intra-group situations". European Journal of Social Psychology (Science Direct) 18 (3): 287–292. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420180308. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00221031. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
