Naked As A Jaybird

Bernie Delinski writes Just Ask, which runs Wednesdays in the TimesDaily. Recently he was Trying to uncover the naked truth when a reader asked, "Where did the saying, 'naked as a jaybird' come from?" Delinski's (partial) reply was:

Yep, I'm having trouble uncovering the truth. I'm going to have to get down to the bare essentials to find this answer.

If I fail, I might be exposed as a fraud, and have the Just Ask column stripped from me.

This question does, however, remind me of one of my favorite Lewis Grizzard theories: There's a difference between being naked and "nekkid."

Grizzard used to say that, if you're naked, you don't have clothes on. But, if you're "nekkid," you don't have clothes on and are up to something.

Anyway, the Word Detective (word-detective.com) says "naked as a jaybird" has been used since at least the mid-1900s, and seems to have originated in America. In England, they say "naked as a robin."

Granted, blue jays and robins have feathers, so the phrase doesn't seem to make sense either way. Although, technically, they aren't wearing clothes. Still though, why pick on these poor birds. I mean, humans are the only animals that wear clothes. Other than humans, we can pick on any animal. So that does it, I'm coining a phrase: "naked as a duckbill platypus."

And from there he basically just tries to be pithy. However, had he spent just a little time at Taschen...

Modern nudism began in Germany with the Wandervögel, or wandering birds, young men and women who took to the countryside, hiking, singing and shedding their clothes in protest against Europe's dehumanizing industrialization. The year was 1900. Modern nudism nearly ended in California with the Jaybirds, young men and women who took to the beaches, spreading peace, love and limbs in protest against Puritanical prohibition of doing their own thing. The year was 1965. Both Wandervögel and Jaybirds failed in the end to change the world, but unlike the Wandervögel, Jaybirds left a paper trail, the pseudo- nudist magazines full of hippy-speak and the happy, healthy, hairy bodies you find in this book.

The book is Naked as a Jaybird, by Dian Hanson.

Vintage Jaybird nudist camp ad via Sex is a Red-Blooded Thing.