But why is it a camel in the saying 🐫? Why not a horse, cow, ox…
Yes, that’s the point.
I guess it is very interesting to think about that analogy, cause I never fully thought about that.
The camel was miserable before.
Which means the camel tried to last through it until it broke the camel’s metaphorical back. Which I guess also tells me that if someone says that to me, they are saying someone suffered through something way too long until they finally reacted. I never really thought about it as a hint that you didn’t have to bear something, you could have spoken up earlier already.
This explanation might be too detailed but I just realized that so maybe this is interesting to someone else.
It’s fascinating to read it so aptly described. I thought it was obvious what the saying meant. That’s why it is usually said to express exasperation. When someone has already endured a lot of abuse, it takes only but a minor inconvenience or minimal annoyance to finally drive them beyond the treshold of tolerance.
That’s the image, even such an insignificant weight as that of a straw is capable of breaking someone if they have been overburdened for long already.
The equivalent expression in my language is “the drop that filled the glass”. As with the camel, the glass was already full, it just needed one more drop to reach its limit.
