Since the late 19th century, the expression sick canary has been used in Australian English with reference to feebleness and ineffectualness.
—Cf. also:
– the British-English phrase (as) sick as a parrot;
– the phrase canary in the coal mine.
The earliest occurrences that I have found of this Australian-English use of the expression sick canary are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From Gerald Gray. Or, The Deed in the Haunted Walk, published in The Newcastle Chronicle (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 16th January 1875 [chapter 32, page 4, column 3]:
‘Then you fancy he is worse this morning?’ said Eleanor, anxiously.
‘Worse, miss?—however could he be better, when he doesn’t eat as much as a sick canary? Only one blessed half-cup of coca have [sic] passed his lips this day.
2-: From Acta Populi, by ‘The Flaneur’, published in The Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 27th February 1892 [page 14, column 2]:
That the Electoral Reform Bill would be knocked into a Coonanbarra hat by the House of Fossils was dead certain from the start […]. Now what sort of a show can a One-man-one-vote Bill ever have in a House so constituted as that? About as much as a sick canary would have amongst a yardful of healthy Thomas cats.
3-: From The Curragh Club, by ‘The Flaneur’, published in The Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 27th April 1895 [page 8, column 4]:
“Exactly what happened during the awful convulsion that followed will never be known to poor Hobson, but when the first great shock was over he found his wife’s mother had grabbed him by the hair, and as she bored his nose into the table she yelled, ‘It’s good enough for you, is it? Well, I’m an obliging old lady myself, and so I’ll let you have the lot of it, and in the place I think it will do you most good too?’ With that she emptied the whole of the treacle over Hobson’s head, worked it into his hair, and down his neck and into his ears, while he spluttered and screamed, ‘Lemme up! I’m goin’ to be mas—mas—master in my own house!’ but the unlucky man was as helpless in the clutch of his mother-in-law as a sick canary would be in the grip of a hungry Tom cat, and his efforts to assert his dignity and awe his assailant by bloodthirsty threats were rendered unavailing by the way the strong-armed dame broke up his speech, and his nose, by the terrible pounding she gave the table with his poor treacle-stained face.”
4-: From Sporting Notes, by ‘Delaware’, published in Truth (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Sunday 15th August 1897 [page 6, column 1]:
‘Amateur,’ Muswellbrook.—There is no hard and fast rule for feeding a racehorse. Some horses will eat anything, and in any quantity, while others are as dainty as a sick canary.
5-: From Current Jottings, published in The Western Champion and Parkes & Forbes Representative (Parkes, New South Wales, Australia) of Friday 7th January 1898 [page 3, column 2]:
United and properly equipped, Australia could make matters unpleasantly warm for an enemy; but divided and unprepared, as she is, she would stand no more show against the Russian Bear than a sick canary would against a hungry tom-cat.
6-: From In the Bar Parlor, published in The Clipper (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) of Saturday 30th September 1899 [page 4, column 4]:
The other day a lady teacher, a delicate little woman with the appetite of a sick canary, had a ton of pumpkins dumped down at her back door as payment for ‘the childer’s schoolin’!’ She couldn’t use one pumpkin in a year, but had to accept a whole ton at market price or lose six scholars and thus get herself disrated by a wooden-souled Education Department.
7-: From On the World’s Stage, by ‘Jovial Jacques’, published in The National Advocate (Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 22nd June 1905 [page 2, column 4]:
We have Russia trying to bluff Japan into the belief that the big bungling bear is not half beaten, but has enough fight left in him to turn the tide of war and come off victorious, and all the world knows that Russia really has as much chance of defeating Japan as a sick canary would have in battling against a hungry Tom cat.
8-: From The Sermon, by ‘Platypus’, published in The Clipper (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) of Saturday 17th March 1906 [page 5, column 2]:
I knew a Labor editor who’d an offer of a pound per day for every day in the year—a ‘comfy’ position.
Why didn’t he take it?
Well, just because in his locality the Labor Cause was at a low ebb.
It was in danger of dying an unnatural death.
The CAUSE was dearer to his heart than mere paltry gold and silver.
He preferred to stand by his few comrades and fight a hard up-hill battle for the sake of Humanity.
The screw he now gets would hardly keep a sick canary in tucker, but he gets plenty of curses from Fatmanity.
9-: From Sydney Squibs, by ‘The Rocket’, published in the Goulburn Evening Penny Post (Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 20th July 1907 [page 2, column 1]—the Canadian boxer Tommy Burns (real name: Noah Brusso) had defeated the Australian boxer Bill Squires:
I warned Squires not to attempt to spar or try any scientific styles of fighting whatever, for he would have no more chance with a skilled American slugger at that sort of game than a sick canary would have against a hungry, healthy Thomas cat.
10-: From Acta Populi, by ‘The Flaneur’, published in The Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 29th July 1909 [page 31, column 3]:
I was dining with a lot of racing men about this time, and the mistress of the hotel, who was great on “style,” cut the bread and butter so very fine that “Fireball Bill,” a rough-and-ready trainer of the old school, in order to “get a fair grip of the tucker,” as he observed, slapped one slice on top of the other until he had six layers, which he sent down the “Red Lane” at once. Getting tired of this at last, he shouted: “I say, Mrs. A——, cut us some good box-log chunks, will you? These ’ere bloomin’ postage-stamp concerns wouldn’t fill a sick canary.”
11-: From Acta Populi, by ‘The Flaneur’, published in The Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 25th November 1909 [page 9, column 3]:
I believe in the old backblock axiom, “No breakfast, no man!” I have known an old level-headed squatter who used to go down to his men’s hut every breakfast hour and note the men who ate heartily and the men who only “picked a bit” like a sick canary. These latter soon got their “walking tickets” if they did not soon improve.
12-: From Peter’s Proposal, an unsigned short story published in The Albury Banner, and Wodonga Express (Albury, New South Wales, Australia) of Friday 11th October 1918 [page 11, column 1]:
“Jim!” exclaimed Mr. Peter Morris. “I can’t stand it any longer.”
Jim Dudley looked at his friend surprisedly.
“What the deuce are you talking about?”
“Edie Rainsford. Hang it, you know how I feel towards her!”
Jim sighed as he lit his pipe.
“Well, I ought to. You have talked of nothing else for the past week, and you eat about as much as a sick canary.”
13-: From the transcript of a speech made, during a visit to Casino, by William Morris Hughes (1862-1952), Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923—transcript published in The Richmond River Express, Casino and Kyogle Advertiser (Casino, New South Wales, Australia) of Friday 19th May 1922 [page 2, column 6]:
Referring to the stressful years of war, he said that words could not serve as a substitute for deeds, because they would have eventually fallen to the bottomless pit. It was said of him that in the war he was too prone to act, but now his critics were hopping from one stool to another like a sick canary, and said now that he did not do enough or that he did too much.
14-: From a letter to the Editor, by ‘Butcher’, published in The Lithgow Mercury (Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia) of Wednesday 31st August 1927 [page 4, column 3]:
[The sheep] are too weak to walk, and a butcher wouldn’t get enough meat off one, to feed a sick canary.
15-: From The Peanut as Food, published in The Northern Standard (Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia) of Tuesday 24th September 1935 [page 5, column 3]:
When Tim first came to us he was as poor as wood; his long gaunt emaciated frame was unsightly to behold; his bones were almost protruding through his skin. Sitting down for the first time at our table he scarcely ate as much as Ma’s sick canary; he was terribly weak.
16-: From 50-50 – Service Girls Defended – Letterettes In Fifty Words, published in the Daily Telegraph and Daily News (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 14th February 1946 [page 21, column 5]:
Canary
To “The Punter,” who tried to pick up a fallen bike, got a hit on the nose, knocked the bloke flat, and had to pay damages. So you knocked him flat. 50-50 readers always thought when you knocked ’em flat they stayed flat. Candidly, I don’t think you could knock a sick canary off a perch.—“E.C.”
17-: From Quick Work, Lily, a short story by Ellen Gatti, published in The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 5th October 1946 [page 6, column 1]:
“He gets very irritated at any sudden noise. He just lets himself go. And the rest of the time he sits around in a daze like a sick canary.”
18-: From Dairymen against individual quotas operating, published in The Singleton Argus (Singleton, New South Wales, Australia) oof Friday 13th August 1948 [page 1, column 4]—Mr. A. Vitnell was a member of the Milk Zone Dairymen’s Council:
Mr. Vitnell said everyone was better off under present conditions.
There were producers on the swamp country who had not been able to produce a gallon of milk, because flood waters had overrun their farms.
“Those producers would not be able to get enough milk to feed a sick canary during winter […],” he said.
19-: From the column Roundabout, published in the Harvey-Waroona Mail (Collie, Western Australia, Australia) of Friday 25th July 1952 [page 3, column 3]:
When the amount of board allowed for billetting a group of visiting student teachers was being discussed at a P. and C. meeting this week one speaker said, “£2 a week wouldn’t keep a sick canary. It should never have been suggested.” Another member said the acceptance of the £2 was all the more to the credit of those who billetted teachers for so small an amount.
20-: From Dancers taught to take the lunge, published in The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Friday 21st February 1975 [page 14, column 4]:
The professor stands looking with mock disgust at the row of dancers from the Australian Ballet.
“You wouldn’t knock a sick canary off a toilet seat,” he announces. “On guard. Lunge. Lunge.”
And so it goes on… the highly disciplined and rigorous work of training the dancers to use their epees with skill and care.
Lou Lopata, 30 years a fencer, has been flown to Melbourne to put the changed cast of Romeo and Juliet through their sword-fighting paces.
21-: From a portrait of Lou Lopata, who was teaching fencing at the Hakoah Club, published in The Hakoah Star: Official Hakoah Club Magazine, in the Australian Jewish Times (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Thursday 24th June 1976 [page 13, columns 1 & 2]:
Lou is one of the genuine characters of this town. An original, to whom a colourful Aussie turn of phrase comes as naturally as his attitude to work and his profession. […]
It was Lou Lopata who was quoted in a newspaper article (he didn’t know the reporter was already in the gymnasium) as saying to a pupil:
“You couldn’t knock a sick canary off a toilet seat like that!”
22-: From Consistency sought in refereeing standards, about Rugby-Union referees, by Michael Foster, published in The Canberra Times (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia) of Wednesday 22nd June 1983 [page 44, column 7]:
The […] referee was, in my opinion, being realistic when he totally ignored what passed as a punch-up.
In the usual manner of such incidents in this town there was a lot of wrestling, dancing and throwing of punches that would not knock a sick canary off its perch.
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