"We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Maudie would yell back, 'Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you at the post office, I haven't heard you yet!' . . . He said he was trying to get Miss Maudie's goat, [and] that he had been trying unsuccessfully for forty years. . ." (43-44).
This passage shows Uncle...
"We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Maudie would yell back, 'Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you at the post office, I haven't heard you yet!' . . . He said he was trying to get Miss Maudie's goat, [and] that he had been trying unsuccessfully for forty years. . ." (43-44).
This passage shows Uncle Jack teasing Miss Maudie. He explains the situation to the kids using an idiom--a figure of speech that uses words in their non-literal sense, but also in an unpredictable way. To "get someone's goat" probably originates in the early 1900s in America when slang became a popular way to speak. "Get your goad" might also be the original form, which means to get irritated. As people mispronounced phrases, heard things incorrectly, or used slang, the phraseology changed to "get your goat".
Children like Scout are very literal as they are learning to speak, read, and write. Sarcasm, and figures of speech such as idioms, can therefore be confusing. Just think about what kids might think is literally happening with other idioms such as "Cat got your tongue?" or "He can't see past the end of his nose," or "It's raining cats and dogs." Fortunately, Miss Maudie doesn't really have a goat for Uncle Jack to steal, he was simply trying to annoy her and catch her off guard. When he says he has been unsuccessful at it for forty years, that means she always has a good response to volley back at him.
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