Is There an Albatross Around Your Neck?
Is there an albatross around your neck? What does that even mean? First, the albatross has been a sign of good luck to sailors for centuries. As such, killing one is considered to be bad luck. In the old poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, because the narrator killed an albatross, his fellow sailors made him wear it around his neck. As such, it references the notion that you have a burden weighing you down.