"That dog won't hunt."

I love being southern. Ingrained in my "make-up" are things like grits and gravy, collard greens, "yes ma'am and no-sir", and of course, country music. One of my favorite things about being southern is the use of colloquialisms in our everyday conversation. Sentences like " That dog won't hunt", which refers to any unworkable situation, such as dragging your "bird" dog out into the field, and discovering that he has suddenly had an acute attack of conscience, and now refuses to "bird". Or maybe this one: That _____, ( insert noun of choice) was fit to be tied."  This one indicates a state of perplexity approaching "shock and awe".... Where it comes from, I have no idea.

My favorite one is one my Mother's Father was fond of using. I often heard him use this one in describing certain " churches", or "Christians" whose performance was deemed not to be " Up to snuff" ( What does that one mean?!) by whomever he happened to be conversing with. Inevitably, Grandpa would hear about someone doing something " UN-christian", and he would slowly shake his head and say: " You can write hen-house over the door, but that don't mean there's any chickens inside." I always assumed this was a commentary on hypocrisy, until I stopped to remember Grand-pa's story.

Just for background purposes, He had grown up during the era of the great depression, to a family which consisted in part of 12 siblings... That's a lot I know, but one has to remember that there weren't a whole lot of entertainment options in those days.
  Lacking the most basic of necessities was common place, and doing without was just a way of life. I can't imagine what it was like back then, when hope was scarse, and hard work was made less tolerable by an empty belly. I imagined the first time a runny nosed, barefoot, little kid in the foothills of Virginia heard those words, and what caused him to commit them to memory.

Maybe the saying is less about people pretending to be something they are not, and more about a little boys' hopefulness that there's an answer for the hunger he and the rest of the nation are feeling... and that in a world full of empty " hen-houses" somewhere out there, there's one with some chickens inside.
Maybe I should view Gramps' words not as a justification for criticism, but as an admonition to make sure if I am writing "hen-house" over my door, when a hungry, little, tow-headed boy comes sniffing around he is delighted to find that there is hope, and that despite previous disappointments, that here, at last, there are chickens inside.