|
Reader question: Please explain “home to roost” in this sentence: “Past mistakes really have come home to roost here and no one is escaping from them.” My comments: Obviously the speaker is talking about a situation where people are paying for mistakes they made in the past. We are not sure exactly what those mistakes were, but are certain they’re back to haunt everyone because, as the speaker says, “no one is escaping from them.” In other words, they have come home to roost, like chickens always come home to roost, i.e. to rest for the night. Yes, the full expression is: Chickens have come home to roost. If you have raised chickens in the backyard, you’ll be able to observe this easily. In the morning, the birds will get out of their nest to wander and forage for food but every evening when the sun goes down, they come back to the nest to roost. That happens every night without exception. Hence the idea: Bad words or deeds will come back to bite you as sure as chickens will come home to roost no matter how far they have gone during the day and no matter how long they’ve been out. In other words, metaphorically speaking, what goes round comes round. In other words, as is the case in our example, past mistakes always are able to come back to haunt those who made the mistakes originally – even though the original perpetrators have long forgotten all about ever having made any of those mistakes in the first place. | 
