Kotowaza: Muddy the Tracks of a Standing Chicken?

[mbarker]

Hum -- someone is having trouble with a computer that someone else used before, and didn't clean up. In talking about the problem, they fell back on this saying:

立つ鳥跡を濁さず
 たつとりあとをにこさず

立つ: standing
鳥: bird, chicken
跡: tracks
濁さず: muddy

Cover up the tracks of a standing chicken? Hide the tracks of the chicken?

Apparently a kotowaza about cleaning up after yourself, but I'm not sure how they got from the words to the implied meaning.　Sounds a bit like someone caught a chicken thief sometime by following the tracks, but that's a long stretch.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Correction: "I've been speaking prose all my life...."

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Ah, is that what I meant? :-)