What is the origin of ‘my fine feathered friend’?
I found a Tom & Jerry cartoon from 1942 called Fine Feathered Friend. I think Glenn Miller recorded a tune called My Fine Feathered Friend, but I can’t find a reference to it that has a date.
According to AllMusic.com, that song was recorded in either 1935, 1937 or 1938 - as it appears on a Glenn Miller compilation that has songs from those years.
I found a site that has a listing of movie songs written by Jimmy McHugh (who wrote that song) and the site says it appears in the movie “You’re A Sweetheart” in 1937.
As for origins…I got nothin’.
Here’s the earliest OED cite for “feathered friends”.
Since it’s quoted, I gather the phrase was already been in use.
Our feathered friends are birds. ‘My fine feathered friend’, as I’ve heard it, is used to refer to a person in the same way as one would say, ‘My dear boy’. (Only I’ve most often – but not each time – heard it uttered by gloating villains.)
Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh wrote My Fine Feathered Friend in 1937. Glenn Miller and Woody Herman both recorded it that year.
The phrase “fine feathered friend” was also used in the song My Funny Valentine, written in 1937 as well (by Rodgers and Hart). See the lyrics here.
I realize that. And I did not say that the OED entry was proof of the origin of ‘my fine feathered friend’. But I think it shows at least that ‘mfff’ did not occur before that. If it had, that reference would be in the OED instead. The exact origin hasn’t been shown here yet.
You can certainly find cites in newspapers from 1920-1934 which call people, especially women, who have pretty trappings and manners but who are not what they seem on the inside, as “fine-feathered.”
It was merely some writer discovering that “fine feathered friends” had a melodic ring to it, and it was picked up as a catch phrase, no doubt popularized by the song.