Today, we commonly refer to someone holding a grudge or grievance as having “a chip on their shoulder.”
A
weird thing to say.
What
is a chip on your shoulder?
Turns
out, the idiom has roots in a literal practice.
Back in the early 1800s, surly young American men itching to fight would
place a chip of wood on their shoulder and challenge others to knock it off.
If
someone accepted the challenge, a fight was on.
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