The expression ‘chip on one’s shoulder” is a metaphorical concept which means that someone ignites a grudge or hard feeling against someone in order to provoke a fight.
The history can be traced to the early 19th century where people belonging to a certain group would actually place a chip on their shoulder and would walk around challenging the other group to knock it off and thus inviting a physical fight.
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The first time it appeared in written use was the Long Island telegraph newspaper which said:” When two churlish boys were determined to fight, a chip would be placed on the shoulder of one, and the other demanded to knock it off at his peril.” From where it was adopted into Oxford Dictionary.
The phrase has now carries a figurative meaning of being angry over someone due to some issues. No one these days actually carries a chip on their shoulder.
Some people always seem angry, for them it would be right to say that they carry a chip on their shoulder all the time. Such people usually feel that they have been treated wrongly and so are always ready to fight for it. They feel offended and feel inferior always as they believe that the world is unfair to them.
So any kind of grudge or anger that you carry in your mind all the time is like a chip on your shoulder. This is because it makes you vulnerable to the people around who you feel always ill-treat you or hurt you with their ways or acts.
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It may also be the case that something bad happened to you and you were never able to get out of the feeling or the hurt that it cause and now keep a grievance about it as you think that someone let it happen to you.
Such a person may pose like a tough person, but inside it is his anger which makes him behave so. At work, if you find certain people who you feel are unpleasant and ready for arguments over pity things or nothing, then such people carry a chip on their shoulder. This means that they want to enter into a fight or argument even when other people are co-operative. It is a behavior pattern of such people. Such people are actually always expecting something troublesome to happen and thus behave rude or arrogant as a reaction to their belief. For example, if your boss gets angry if he learns about a slightest of thing that went wrong and starts shouting explaining the consequences of such a thing, he is probably carrying a chip on his shoulder.
Sometimes your own family members, friends or close ones show such resentment and tend to see things in negative light and get into a fight when you are just trying to talk to them, it is indicative of them having a chip on their shoulder. They in a way challenge the other person and make the discussion turn into an argument just because they feel offended about something.
