I had an email recently from an ex-colleague and pal.
There was none of that ‘how are you?’ stuff, that you might expect.
You know – that sort of polite conversational stuff before the killer request. Oh no.
He was straight in there:
“Carol – Is it ‘CHAMPING’ at the bit or ‘CHOMPING’ at the bit…??
“I favour ‘champing’…but am I right? So many colleagues seem to quote the other variant.”
After I had finished laughing – in a comedic horse-whinnying way that frightened the cat out of the office – I sat down and had a think.
Do I ‘champ’ or ‘chomp’? And which is correct?
Well, my natural instinct, like Paul, would be to go with the former. So it was time to do some ferreting around to see what’s what in the world of bit-champing – or chomping.
First port of call is the word ‘champ’. What does it mean? Well. A quick scoot over to an online dictionary tells us
that it means to crush and chew noisily, or to bite upon and grind impatiently.
Looking at the history of the word we can see it probably started life in the 16th century as an onomatopoeic verb – or one that sounds like the actual action of a munching horse.
Chomp, by comparison, apparently appears about a century later as a variant of ‘champ’.
The ‘bit’ referred to in the phrase is the piece of metal in a horse’s mouth that allows the rider to control its movements. When excited or nervous, the animal will champ (or ‘chomp’) on it.
So, the this is where the expression as a whole comes from. If you’re keen to get on and do something, you’re just like a horse chewing on a delicious piece of metal. Ahem.
So. ‘champ’ or ‘chomp’? I suppose I could just make life esier for myself and everyone by referring to the Guardian Style Guide. It just says: ‘champ’ not ‘chomp’.
Simples.
