This saying has been bugging me!
 

Hi, can someone please tell me what this saying means:
"When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty"
Has been bugging me for quite awhile!:yep:

The Bull is out of ****...

"John has a long mustache" :up:

Come on guys, serious!:lol: Unless you mean it is totally meaningless dribble!:doh:

As far as i can tell it is meaningless.

"The chips are down" is an old poker term meaning that one is in danger of loosing.

The buffalo part seems to be added on recently but has no poker or card connotation that i know of.

"wounds my heart with a monotonous languor"

Did you try Google? A dictionary? I'm honored that you came here first, but nobody knows everything. That said, August's version sounds correct to me.

"When the chips are down, you need all the friends you can get." That's one of many uses of the phrase. Usually in connotates being in a very bad position, and judges the subject by how he reacts in that situation.

It sounds to me like someone took the phrase and added something related but irrelevant just for the humor. It's an old fun game, taking the first half of a famous phrase and adding an unexpected second half just for a laugh.

I was just telling a friend about an old comedy country song called 'Cow Patty', about a girl who seeks revenge for her father's murder. When she finds the killer, he's faster on the draw than she is, but steps in a cow pie at the critical moment, so she gets him. Since cow patties/pies are also called cow chips, the whole song is a setup for the moral of the story: "When the chips are down...watch your step."

The timing on this was perfect.

Ok here's my idea of what this sentence could mean.

When the chips are down= as August wrote
the buffalo is empty= perhaps it's refering to the skin of the wallet


Markus

We may have just sent Skybird running for das bunker... :lol:

Yes & Reece has a long beard!:lol: WTF!:rotfl:
I see what you mean Steve! Funny it showed up in a fortune cookie! I think Confucius was stoned at the time!:lol:

:rotfl::rotfl:
Come on Skybird, how about some words of wisdom here!:yep:

Iceman got it right.

-S

Well you can't say it stinks then!:lol:

Let me get this straight then!
When the chips are down (when your down in the dumps) the buffalo is empty (the bull has run out of Sh**!) That makes a lot of sense!!:lol:

Maybe this will help you - Cow chips? :D

-S

Ahh now I get it!!:doh:
Unless ofcourse your full of it!:lol:
Never heard of cow pats referred to as chips before, (must be a yankee thing) learn something new everyday!:yep:

But obviously left Reese dazed and confused.

Well the best I can do is find out who it is attributed to

“Remember that when the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.” -Richard Twiss (Rosebud Lakota/Sioux)

Twiss has wikipedia page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Twiss

As to it's meaning, one would have to assume that it has a meaning. It might just be a funny saying.

Sayings don't always have to have a meaning.