get crickets

[jasonlulu_2000]

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-pandemic-many-reflect-on-what-to-be-thankful-for/


"What can we possibly be thankful for in 2020?" When I posed that question to my kids, I got crickets.

What does "got crickets" mean?

Thanks for your help!

Jason

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Maybe the kids alll started chirping.

 

[GoesStation]

I first noticed this use of "crickets" a year or so ago. The phrase "I got crickets" means "I received no replies."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I first noticed this use of "crickets" a year or so ago. The phrase "I got crickets" means "I received no replies."

Oh! Like:

- I got nuttin.
- I got squat.
- I got bupkis.

What an odd turn of phrase. Crickets never shut up!

 

[GoesStation]

How does it come to mean that?

I was just wondering how "crickets" came to mean "nothing". I suspect it refers to the background noise prevalent in many American regions in the summertime. I asked a question. Listening for a reply, I heard nothing but the crickets chirping in the background.

I think it's quite clever.

 

[emsr2d2]

According to this Wikipedia page, it's used that way only in the US and Canada (at the moment).

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, it's a descriptive way to mean silence, as when at night the only sound you can hear is the chirping of crickets. I'd say this sound, quite paradoxically, has come to be seen as symbolic of the sound of silence, in a similar way to that of the breeze that blows a tumbleweed rolling across a desert.

I'd never heard this used before reading this thread, but I understood the meaning instantly and clearly.

 

[SoothingDave]

Understand it as "nothing but crickets."