Читать книгу Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day - Harry Oliver - Страница 25

The ‘eager beaver’, that industrious, ambitious and often over-zealous fellow at work, can be a boon to productivity. At the same time he often has the unwelcome effect of making his colleagues look sluggish by comparison. Hence, the mildly derogatory connotations of the expression. Clearly the phrase is rooted in the widespread perception of the beaver as a tireless and enthusiastic worker, what with all that impressive dam-building, and phrases such as ‘busy as a beaver’ and ‘beaver away’ came into use in England as early as the eighteenth century. ‘Eager beaver’ itself was first recorded in use in the 1940s, by the army of a country that bristles with the creatures – Canada.