Feasting

After two weeks of enforced downtime, the gods of freelance are again smiling on me. Which makes me wonder why I ever bother to worry about work, as I know from experience that "feast or famine" is the law in the freelance kingdom.

It also makes me wonder about that idiom's origins.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms notes that "this expression, which transfers an overabundance or shortage of food to numerous other undertakings, was first recorded in 1732 as 'feast or fast,' the noun famine being substituted in the early 1900s." As you might expect, one of the examples listed refers to freelancing.

Hmm, what changed in the early 1900s? And when did the expression become so associated with freelancing?

I'll have to do some digging -- when I'm next in famine mode.