Michael Mitchell: Archive

Since I'm creating again after a short hiatus and my works are usually very serious, I'm sure I won't get the chance to write many lighthearted articles. So I decided to start by correcting a widespread misunderstanding of the very useful simile "like looking for a needle in a haystack."

The meaning of "needle in a haystack" here is literal. It's not an idiom, like "raining cats and dogs" or "pulling my leg." I don't know how we modern geniuses managed to get it so wrong, but we did.

Wikipedia says the figure of speech refers to "something that is difficult to locate in a much larger space." The Free Dictionary says it refers to "something extremely hard to find" and that it is "based on the idea that it is almost impossible to find a thin sewing needle in a haystack." Cambridge Dictionaries Online says it refers to "something that is impossible or extremely difficult to find, especially because the area you have to search is too large."

As far as linguistic authorities go, these sources are at the tip-top, but if you do a Google search, you'll find most agree with these overtly generalized descriptions. UsingEnglish.com comes closer to the actual meaning, saying it refers to trying to find something that "is very difficult, if not impossible to find among everything around it," but I think the most important characteristic of this comparison is still missing.

I should probably stress that dictionaries and encyclopedias aren't literary policemen and it isn't their responsibility to regulate the use of words. I do think they should place getting it right above mirroring the culture -- and the loss of meaning in this figure of speech is proof I'm right -- but that's a separate issue. These authorities chose these descriptions because that is how they've observed us using this figure of speech. The fact we are using it wrongly is irrelevant to them (though it shouldn't be).

The confusion, I think, is caused by the word "needle." If you think it refers to sewing needles, then I'm being a wise ass and you should stop reading now because I'm wasting your time. But what if it refers to individual, discrete units of hay?

First of all, regardless of the meaning of "needle" here, Wikipedia, The Free Dictionary and Cambridge are wrong because there is no mention of the "haystack" in their descriptions. I mean, "large area" doesn't even remotely compare to "haystack," especially if the area is empty. This is why the description at UsingEnglish.com is more apt. It mentions "everything around" the "needle," like a toy lost in a kid's messy bedroom.

I still think this interpretation is wrong, though. How hard is it really to find a "(sewing) needle in a haystack?"

If I wanted to be a smart ass, I'd say: "Not hard at all, if you have a magnet or a metal detector." And then any English teacher would remind me: "Hey, Mr. Wiseacre. It's a figure of speech." Still, it might take some time, but it wouldn't be very difficult to find a sewing needle in a stack of hay. It would be like trying to find a red box in a pile of blue boxes. The "needle" would stand out, thus trivializing this figure of speech.

I disagree with all of these descriptions. This figure of speech doesn't refer to finding something hard to find or to finding something small in a large area or even to finding something among lots of other things. It refers to finding something among lots of similar things. And I'll prove it shortly, but first I want to show why it matters.

Imagine this scenario...

Scenario One: A husband gets home late from taking the kids to the park.

Husband: Sorry, Honey. The little one got lost and it took us 30 minutes to find her. I'm exhausted. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack!
Wife: Oh. That must have been terrible. Was it crowded today?
Husband: No. Not particularly.
Wife: What?

And this one...

Scenario Two: Two cops are searching for a suspect in a big parade.

Young Cop: We're never gonna find him.
Old Cop: Yeah. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Young Cop: More like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles.
Old Cop: Yeah!

See? Figures of speech are only useful if the comparison is equal, otherwise they lead to miscommunication and/or worse: mutated ideas, i.e., thoughts that multiply illogically. The wife in "Scenario One" was confused because she thought "haystack" referred to lots of kids, but the husband really meant the park itself, which makes no sense because a park and a haystack are not similar. And the cops in "Scenario Two" think they've cleverly improved on a trite expression when they've really misused and misunderstood it and only succeeded at reinventing it the way the originator intended it all along!

A haystack IS a needlestack. And an examination of the context of its earliest uses will prove it.

In 1534, Sir Thomas More wrote: "To seek out one line in all St. Austin's works were to go look a needle in a meadow."

What does "needle in a meadow" mean? "Meadow" obviously refers to a field of grass but the meaning of "needle" isn't so readily apparent. It would certainly be difficult to find a sewing needle in a field of grass. However, I think "needle" refers to a blade of grass and the phrase "one line in all St. Austin's works" proves it.

St. Austin is Augustine of Hippo or Saint Augustine and he was well-known for his extensive works. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred separate titles." Also, The City Of God, one of his most famous works, consists of 22 books!

That's a lot of lines, which is More's point. It's true that trying to find one sentence in all of those sentences would be like trying to find a sewing needle in a field of grass, but isn't the comparison more accurate if instead he meant it's like trying to find a blade of grass in a field of grass?

Of course, that's just one example. It could be an anomaly. Let's look at another.

In 1605, Miguel de Cervantes wrote: "Besides, when all is done, I may perhaps as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay, or for a scholar at Salamanca, as for Dulcinea all over the town of Toboso."

This example requires a little more context to fully understand. It's from the classic Spanish novel, Don Quixote. I haven't read it, but the thoughts in the quote belong to Sancho, the squire of Don Quixote, who has been sent to look for Dulcinea, a peasant girl, in the town of Toboso.

Sancho knows Quixote is a "madman" and that he himself is even crazier for following Quixote. He says his master has sent him to find a girl even though his "master himself never set eyes on her in his life." In the quote, he is comparing this search to finding a needle in a bottle of hay or a scholar in Salamanca.

Again, the way I see it, "needle" isn't merely referring to something small. He's literally trying to find a girl among lots of girls. He says it's like trying to find a scholar in a town with lots of scholars, i.e., a university city, like Salamanca. He says it's like trying to find a needle of hay in a bundle of hay.

This is the meaning of this figure of speech. "Needle" refers to a single, individual, discrete unit of hay. A "needle in a haystack" means a "hay needle in a stack of hay needles."

It's not like trying to find a rock in a forest. It's like trying to find a face in a crowd, a drop in the ocean or a grain of sand in a desert.

From a cultural perspective, it's tragic how this figure of speech has lost its meaning. Over the years, it has went from meaning "searching for something among a multitude of similar things" to "searching for something among a multitude of things" to "searching for something small in a large area" to merely "searching for something hard to find."

Imagine if we developed such a widespread misunderstanding of more important concepts, like "freedom" and "justice." Imagine if we gave these mutated ideas to dishonest politicians and pragmatic lobbyists to exploit ruthlessly. Imagine the chaos. Or just look around you...