Coming home to roost?

Reader question:

Please explain “home to roost” in this sentence: “Past mistakes really have come home to roost here and no one is escaping from them.”

My comments:

Obviously the speaker is talking about a situation where people are paying for mistakes they made in the past.

We are not sure exactly what those mistakes were, but are certain they’re back to haunt everyone because, as the speaker says, “no one is escaping from them.”

In other words, they have come home to roost, like chickens always come home to roost, i.e. to rest for the night. Yes, the full expression is: Chickens have come home to roost.

If you have raised chickens in the backyard, you’ll be able to observe this easily. In the morning, the birds will get out of their nest to wander and forage for food but every evening when the sun goes down, they come back to the nest to roost.

That happens every night without exception.

Hence the idea: Bad words or deeds will come back to bite you as sure as chickens will come home to roost no matter how far they have gone during the day and no matter how long they’ve been out.

In other words, metaphorically speaking, what goes round comes round.

In other words, as is the case in our example, past mistakes always are able to come back to haunt those who made the mistakes originally – even though the original perpetrators have long forgotten all about ever having made any of those mistakes in the first place.

Still in other words, it’s, like, karma; it’s, like, the wheels of fortune doing its thing – running round and round all the time even though we may not be aware of it doing so.

Anyways, that’s it about chickens coming home to roost, an age-old expression which, by the way, Americans still use quite a lot today.

And here are media examples:

1. Is the Chagrin Falls pumpkin roll doomed? If so, it’s a victim of its own success and our media-saturated society.

The roll used to be Chagrin’s best-kept secret. Then it made the dailies, and TV cameras showed up. Now it’s posted on YouTube and FaceBook, and it even has its own Wikipedia page, wikipedia.org/Pumpkin-roll. It used to involve only teens from Chagrin Falls, but the coverage drew outsiders -- something that frustrated local kids who wanted to keep it small and local.

All the publicity turned regional spotlights on the roll, and village leaders -- who, in truth, have looked the other way for 39 years -- began to worry that it was a safety and liability risk.

This year, that fear came home to roost when an errant sled struck a Solon man watching on the sidewalk. He went flying and ended up in MetroHealth Medical Center with serious head injuries. Now several Solon women are calling for an end to the tradition. That’s not likely to happen. The roll is a rite of passage for Chagrin Falls teenagers. It began 39 years ago when members of the Chagrin Falls High School Class of 1969 rolled 69 pumpkins down Grove Hill one autumn night. The kids organize it and are determined to perpetuate the tradition. No self-respecting CFHS class wants to be the one to stop the pumpkin roll.

It is tragic that a Solon man got hurt, but it was never intended to draw outside spectators. Actually, the event has an enviable safety record of 39 years without a serious injury.

- Long live the pumpkin roll, Cleveland.com, November 13, 2008.

2. Gen Sir Rupert Smith, who commanded the UK’s 1st Armoured Division at the time, says while the objective of liberating Kuwait was achieved, “the strategic condition was hardly decisive and subsequently had to be maintained by no-fly zones and UN sanctions”.

Any attempt to put Saddam Hussein “back in his box” or help bring about his demise failed.

Prof Clark says the quick military victory created “many illusions that soon came home to roost”.

The hubris would soon come crashing down.

The subsequent US-led military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq were costly enduring campaigns against unconventional armies that would end without any clear victory.

In particular, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 showed the limits of US military might and tested the unity of the international order - the UN was bitterly divided.

And Gen Cordingley says the British army, now designed to fight wars “among the people”, would be “incapable” of ever again doing anything on the same scale as Desert Storm.

- Operation Desert Storm: Last of its kind, BBC.com, January 18, 2016.

3. When Konrad Mizzi was still a star Labour Party candidate in the run up to the 2013 General Election, he rounded on Tonio Fenech, who was at the time Finance Minister, with the phrase ‘shame on you’.

Dr Mizzi used it repeatedly during live televised debates, and it soon became one of the battle cries of the Labour Party’s election campaign. They say a week is a long time in politics, and it certainly has been for the Labour Party, the government and, most particularly Dr Mizzi.

The phrase that he used so liberally, and at the time so successfully, has now come back to haunt him, his government and his party. The Nationalist Party has put up billboards, coining the phrase for itself and many have taken to social media to post a multitude of memes involving Panama hats and the ‘shame on you phrase’. It was also used yesterday when Shadow Justice Minister Jason Azzopardi appeared in court to be accused of criminal defamation after former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit made a criminal complaint against him.

And it seems that the chinks in Joseph Muscat’s once impenetrable armour are beginning to appear. The Prime Minister is standing four square behind both Dr Mizzi and his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, both of whom were found to possess companies in Panama. Both have said there was no wrongdoing and the Prime Minister took their word for it and said he will not act until he has proof from audits carried out by private firms. However, things are starting to look more and more shaky as it emerges that Dr Mizzi did not even identify himself as a politician when he first attempted to open bank accounts in Dubai and Panama.

But it is clear that the damage is taking its toll. The Malta Independent was the first to report the rumblings within the party as Education Minister Evarist Bartolo posted some not so cryptic posts on Facebook warning of storms and to take preventive action.

Since then, the Panama Papers were leaked, and there is very serious now serious worry that the revelations about Dr Mizzi’s holdings could have a very serious impact on Malta as a financial services centre. The PL’s parliamentary group held what was described as a very ‘animated’ meeting and this newspaper was the first to report that a number of senior ministers pushed for Dr Mizzi’s removal, although they remained solidly behind the Prime Minister.

Since then, the Finance Minister has weighed in with a statement to parliament, the highest institution in the land, where he said that the Prime Minister must take ‘tough’ decisions over the Panama Papers and its revelations.

He said that he will “neither defend nor accuse” anyone involved in the Panamagate scandal but insisted that a decision must be made to clear things out. He said that his Ministry is trying to make it very clear, on international level, that Malta is not a tax haven and that it is strong financial centre.

Prof. Scicluna is not the type of person to make such declarations lightly. He is a somewhat cautious character, but what he said in parliament speaks volumes. Only shortly after, the PM again defended Dr Mizzi, when he was door-stepped by reporters. He said that Dr Mizzi’s bid to open a bank account in Dubai and Panama were standard enquiries, more than formal attempts.

He said that the most important thing was that an independent tax audit was currently under way to establish if there were any irregularities, but pressed whether he would be willing to accept the resignations of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister said that a decision will be taken once independent audits are concluded.

So, the chickens really have come home to roost. Dr Muscat has enjoyed such a majority that he has not yet been challenged in any form or manner, but that has all changed. The PM says that he will await the audits. But in the meantime, Malta has a senior minister who has been tainted by the biggest corruption scandal in history, and it is our reputation as a serious EU member and an established financial services sector operator which is suffering.

This cannot go on. Decisions are needed, and fast.

- The Malta Independent editorial: Panama Papers - Decisions are needed, and fast, Independent.com.mt, April 7, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.