Q: My wife asked me about the expression “happy as a clam,” and I had to admit I knew nothing about it. But I am sure you do.
A: English speakers have been using the “as happy as” formula for nearly four centuries to express exceptional happiness by comparing it to the feelings of various people and creatures perceived to be very happy.
The Oxford English Dictionary describes these expressions as “similative phrases, indicating a high level of happiness,” and has examples dating back to the early 17th century.
The OED’s examples include similes comparing happiness to that of a “king” (1633), a “god” (before 1766), a “lark” (1770), a “prince” (1776), a “pig in muck” (1828), a “clam” (1834), a “cherub” (1868), and a “bee” (1959).
One can understand the thinking behind nearly all of these expressions. The one exception is “as happy as a clam,” which the dictionary describes as “U.S. colloquial.”
The OED doesn’t discuss the history of the expression, but language sleuths have spent quite a bit of time trying to track down the origin of the usage.
The two most common theories are that “as happy as a clam” refers to the clam supposedly feeling safe when underwater during high tide or secure because of the protection of its snug shell.
John Russell Bartlett, in the first edition of his Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), includes only a longer version of the expression: “ ‘As happy as a clam at high water,’ is a very common expression in those parts of the coast of New England where clams are found.”
However, Bartlett suggests in his second edition (1859) that the shorter version may have come first: “Happy as a Clam is a common simile in New England, sometimes enlarged as ‘happy as a clam at high water.’ ’’
As far as we can tell, the shorter version did indeed appear first in writing, though a longer one may have existed earlier in speech.
The earliest example we’ve seen is from this description of a colonial planter in Harpe’s Head, a Legend of Kentucky (1833), a novel by the American writer James Hall:
“He was as happy as a clam. His horses thrived, and his corn yielded famously; and when his neighbors indignantly repeated their long catalogue of grievances, he quietly responded that King George had never done him any harm.”
The OED’s earliest citation, which we’ve expanded, appeared in the December 1834 issue of the short-lived undergraduate literary journal Harvardiana: “He could not even enjoy that peculiar degree of satisfaction, usually denoted by the phrase ‘as happy as a clam.’ ”
The “high water” version first showed up in “The Oakwood Letters,” a humor series published in several different newspapers in 1836. The earliest example we’ve seen is from the Boston Courier (Jan. 7, 1836):
“Dear Mrs. Butternut, I must leave off, for I can’t say any more, only that if I was once more safe at home, I should be happy as a clam at high water, as the sailors say.” (We’ve seen no indication that the expression was a nautical usage.)
The idea that the expression comes from a belief that the clam is happy because it feels secure in its shell appeared in the March 1838 issue of The Knickerbocker, a literary monthly in New York:
“ ‘Happy as a clam,’ is an old adage. It is not without meaning. Your clam enjoys the true otium cum dignitate [leisure with dignity]. Ensconced in his mail of proof [chain mail armor]—for defence purely, his disposition being no ways bellicose—he snugly nestleth in his mucid bed, revels in quiescent luxury, in the unctuous loam that surroundeth him.”
We’ll end with a sonnet by the 19th-century American poet John Godrey Saxe, who writes that a clam’s life is as hard as its shell:
“A Sonnet to a Clam”
Dum tacent clamant [Though silent they shout]
Inglorious friend! most confident I am
Thy life is one of very little ease;
Albeit men mock thee with their similes
And prate of being “happy as a clam!”
What though thy shell protects thy fragile head
From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea?
Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee,
While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed,
And bear thee off,—as foemen take their spoil,—
Far from thy friends and family to roam;
Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home,
To meet destruction in a foreign broil!
Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard
Declares, O clam! thy case is shocking hard!
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