Acting the Maggot
Behaving foolishly. Messing about, usually with a hint of deliberate annoyance to the person watching. 'Stop acting the maggot' is the standard Hiberno-English instruction to a child or pretend-child who is fooling around. Less serious than 'misbehaving'; more pointed than 'horsing around'.
Etymology
Construction is opaque - the maggot does not obviously fit. The phrase is one of a small Hiberno-English family that uses animal names for foolish behaviour: 'act the goat', 'act the jennet' (a small donkey). The 'maggot' may originally have invoked the worm's wriggling, the worm's small size, or both.
In a sentence
"Will you stop acting the maggot - your dinner's getting cold."
Historical notes
Acting the maggot is the everyday Irish-parent instruction to a child fooling around in a way that has crossed from amusing into annoying. The phrase doesn't reach for real anger; it asks the misbehaver to consider whether the current carry-on is going anywhere useful. Often used self-deprecatingly by adults: 'I was acting the maggot, sure, what could I have been thinking?' That dual-use - real instruction for children, ironic confession for adults - is the heart of the phrase's Hiberno-English working life.
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Hiberno-English' vocabulary section. · other
- Dolan, Terence Patrick. A Dictionary of Hiberno-English. Gill Books. · dictionary