you can shake a carrot stick at

[Silverobama]

Hi,

So a healthful diet might actually be changing the expression of the gene, in effect turning it off. Which suggests that there might be more diet-gene interactions than you can shake a carrot stick at.

What does "you can shake a carrot stick at" mean in this sentence?

Thanks a lot

[Barb_D]

The idiom is "more than you can shake a stick at." I don't know where it came from, but it means "many."

Because this is about dieting, and people eat carrot sticks as snacks (better than a candy bar if you're trying to lose weight), the author has made a little pun or clever use of language, changing "more than you can shake a stick at" to "more than you can shake a carrot stick at."

[Gillnetter]

Hi,

So a healthful diet might actually be changing the expression of the gene, in effect turning it off. Which suggests that there might be more diet-gene interactions than you can shake a carrot stick at.

What does "you can shake a carrot stick at" mean in this sentence?

Thanks a lot

The standard saying is, "more than you can shake a stick at". The carrot part was probably added since the discussion was about healthy food. Image that you are standing in a corn field looking at all of the corn. You pick up a stick and move it in an up and down direction (shaking) while pointing the stick at the corn. You can really shake the stick at all of the corn but you want to express the fact that there is a lot of corn - you say that there is more corn than you can shake a stick at. This expression can be used for anything that you want to describe as being large:
There are more cars than you can shake a stick at.
There are more ideas than you can shake a stick at.
There are more theories than you can shake a stick at
There are more people than you can shake a stick at.

[SoothingDave]

I imagine the idiom comes from being surrounded by some sort of wild animal - perhaps wolves. If there is just one, or a few, you can ward them off with a stick.

If there are more than you can shake a stick at, then you are in an unfortunate situation.

[Silverobama]

Which suggests that there might be more diet-gene interactions than you can shake a carrot stick at.

So how to understand the last sentence?

Does it mean that "diet-gene interactions" are more than "carrot sticks"?

[Raymott]

Which suggests that there might be more diet-gene interactions than you can shake a carrot stick at.

So how to understand the last sentence?

Does it mean that "diet-gene interactions" are more than "carrot sticks"?

It means that there might be many more diet-gene interactions than they currently know about.

[Silverobama]

Thanks a lot.

I know the idiom means "many", and obviously, diet-gene interactions is more than we know, but "shake a carrot stick at" puzzles me.

[Raymott]

Thanks a lot.

I know the idiom means "many", and obviously, diet-gene interactions is more than we know, but "shake a carrot stick at" puzzles me.

I don't understand how it could puzzle you after reading Barb's explanation, as well as the others. I can't think of a way of explaining it that doesn't already appear more than once in the above posts. Sorry.

[emsr2d2]

Thanks a lot.

I know the idiom means "many", and obviously, diet-gene interactions is more than we know, but "shake a carrot stick at" puzzles me.

BarbD explained it really well - read her explanation again and see if you can get the nuance.

I'll try putting it simply. The normal phrase is "more than one can shake a stick at" which means "many" (if you want the origin of the phrase, I'm sure Google will help).

The piece is about dieting. Lots of people eat pieces of carrot, otherwise known as "carrot sticks" when they are trying to lose weight. The writer has tried to be clever by mixing the phrase "carrot sticks" into the phrase "more than you can shake a stick at", giving "... shake a carrot stick at".

Personally, I don't think it's particularly well done and until I read Barb's explanation, I just assumed it was an error.

[jahildebrandt]

Not a teacher.

I think we may be overlooking something here. A carrot stick may mean "a carrot on a stick"--a stick with a carrot dangling on a string attached to a person or horse or something:



Naturally, a person chasing after a carrot on a stick will work tirelessly to attain the goal, only to never reach it. A carrot stick in that sentence could just be a joke about living an overly healthy lifestyle, where people starve themselves on salads (or carrots) and work out constantly just to be slim. Changing a person's genes may put an end to such a lifestyle, but there are so many genes, it's hard to know where to begin. Thus there are more genes than you can shake a (carrot) stick at.

I hope this helps.