DCHP-2

bird course DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — Education, student slang, usually derogatory

  a high school or university course that is regarded as easy.

  Type: 5. Frequency — Bird course may have originated in Canada, as attestations of the term are rarely found in other countries, especially not before the 1980s. The term is most prevalent in Canada based on internet domain searches (see Chart 1). Bird course is slightly derogatory, as it implies a person giving or taking it chooses the path of least resistance or the easy route.
  See also ITP Nelson, s.v. "bird course", with label "slang", but not marked as Canadian in any way; and COD-2, s.v. "bird course", which marks the term correctly as "Cdn derogatory slang".

  See also: spare  

  • The term may originate in notions of the small size of birds' brains (see OED-3, s.v. "bird brain"; see also the 1943 quotation).