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What's the origin of the idiom "to blow your own horn"?
Collins Dictionary suggests the following note regarding the BrE version with trumpet:
Note: The usual British expression is blow your own trumpet. Note: In the past, the arrival of important people in a place was announced by the playing of trumpets.
Is there some metaphor behind it with some animal horn? Does the AmE "horn" version derive from the BrE "trumpet" one or viceversa?
According to the article Instruments of Expression: Bells, Drums, and a Horn, it refers to the practice of heraldry. It comes from the sense of 'horn' as a trumpet, and one who blows his own horn is someone making great fanfare about himself, as is usually more appropriately left to a herald.
It says specifically:
To blow your own horn is to be a braggart or "blowhard." This expression, arising in the American West about the middle of the 19th century, derives from an earlier expression, blow your own trumpet, dating back to at least 1576 and probably originating in medieval times, when heralds blew trumpets to announce the arrival of the king. Of course, any merchant or other commoner who wanted to announce his arrival had to blow his own horn.
An early version of 'blow your own horn' appears in Sir Thomas Chaloner's 1549 translation of Erasmus's 1509 (first printed in 1511) Encomium Moriae, "In Praise of Folly":
And what (I praie you) maie be more apt or better fittyng, than dame Foly to praise hir selfe, and be hir owne trumpet? for who can livelier descrive me, then I my selfe?
The use in Erasmus is figurative. 'Trumpet' appears at least as early as 1447 in the sense of a "means or agent (real or imaginary) which proclaims, celebrates, or gives warning of something" (OED, trumpet, n., sense 3).
The Latin source of Chaloner's translation is
Quid enim magis quadrat, quam ut ipsa Moria, suarum laudum fit buccinatrix....
From that source ("buccinatrix"), it is apparent that the intended sense of "trumpet" in Chaloner's translation is the figurative sense of 'trumpeter' (OED, sense 4b of trumpet, n.) corresponding to OED's sense 3 of 'trumpet' (given above).
In light of the much earlier appearance of versions of 'blow your own horn' in the UK than in the US, it is more than likely that the US versions derive from UK versions.
It means praising or sticking up for yourself, and can have either positive or negative connotations, depending on the context.
Besides blowing your own horn/trumpet, you’ll also occasionally tooting or honking substituted for blowing there. Important men used to have heralds to announce their greatness, which is where the expression originally derived from. The metaphor is sometimes adapted to more modern cirumstances; for example, “honking a horn” refers to the horn on a motor vehicle, but the underlying sense of self-praise is unchanged.
Anyone who has trouble understanding where this idiom comes from obviously never shared quarters with a sixth-grader who was learning to play trumpet. ;^)
In addition to blow/toot your own horn/trumpet, there's also the idiom beat your own drum.
Beat your own drum. Toot your own horn.1
Everyone's right could be someone's wrong
Beat your own drum scream your own song2
Either one means "draw some attention to yourself." Usually, the easiest way to do that is to make a lot of noise, to clang your own cymbals. Although, if you really want to catch someone's attention, whisper.3
1 Bob Schumacher, SOLUTIONS
2Teresa Taylor, Love Poetry
3Tag line for an advertising campaign for Coty perfume, #86 on this list
Matthew 6:2-4 2“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
This idiom most likely came from Chinese “blow (the trumpet) and beat (the drum) for yourself”, which was poorly translated. Whose trumpet will you blow if you do not blow your own?
