Was there a time when a schoolyard toughie would actually put a chip on his shoulder and dare someone to knock it off, or is this simply a colorful metaphor with no basis in fact?
It happened in an episode of Andy Griffith (“Opie and the Bully”), that’s proof enough for me to say it is based in fact.
So the “chip” was a potato chip or french fry?
I always pictured the “chip on the shoulder” expression as having a small piece of the shoulder broken off, therefore the person is slightly damaged and is overcompensating for it with aggressive behaviour.
No, a small chip of wood.
It’s putting something like a wood chip on your shoulder and daring somone to knock it off, to show how tough you are. If he doesn’t knock it off, then you tell him what a sissy he is and beat him up; if he *does *knock it off, you tell him he shouldn’t have done that and beat him up.
Here’s one take on it.
Contrapuntal’s link doesn’t work for me, so here’s another take.
It has a cite for actually putting a chip on a shoulder and a conjecture about workers carrying wood logs.
Does this work? It seems to take a few seconds to load.