Black sheep
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Black Sheep (disambiguation).
Black sheep is an English language idiom which describes an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family. The term has been looked upon either positively or negatively depending on the era and culture in which the term was used.
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[edit] Idiomatic usage
Black sheep is an English language idiom—usually derogatory—which describes an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family.[1]
The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a herd of white sheep due to a genetic process of recessive traits. Black sheep were considered commercially undesirable because their wool cannot be dyed as white wool can.[1] In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil.[2]
In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, and the term is usual given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics deemed inappropriate by that group.[3]
[edit] Biological origin
In sheep, whiteness is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off. As a result, sheep blackness is recessive, and if a white ram and a white ewe are parents of a black lamb, both must be heterozygous for black, and then there is a 25% chance that the lamb will be black. A recent study done by the Agricultural University of Norway, and The Vollum Institute of the Oregon Health Sciences University believe the black color is created by an allele E D at the extension locus.[4]
[edit] Other uses
In psychology, the "black sheep effect" refers to the tendency of an in-group to treat or evaluate a member of its own more harshly than a similarly negative behavior or deed of an out-group member.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.
- ^ Sykes, Christopher Simon (1983). Black Sheep. New York: Viking Press, 11. ISBN 0670172766.
- ^ "black sheep." The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992. Answers.com 01 Apr. 2008. http://www.answers.com/topic/black-sheep|accessdate=2008-3-24
- ^ "Molecular and pharmacological characterization of dominant black coat color in sheep" (January, 1999). Mammalian Genome 10 (1): 39–43. Springer New York. doi:. ISSN (Print) 1432-1777 (Online) 0938-8990 (Print) 1432-1777 (Online).
- ^ Black sheep effect Psychology Lexicon. Retrieved on January 4, 2008
[edit] External links
- [1]A home on the Internet for Black Sheep and their families
- "The black sheep effect: Judgmental extremity towards ingroup members in inter-and intra-group situations" . European Journal of Social Psychology 18 (3): 287–292. Science Direct. doi:.
