the first definition for "berth" given in the Oxford English Dictionary is
- Naut. ‘Convenient sea-room, or a fit distance for ships under
sail to keep clear, so as not to fall foul on one another’
with examples from 1622.
The OED says of the word's etymology:
A nautical term of uncertain origin: found first in end of 16th cent.
Most probably a derivative of bear v.1 in some of its senses: see
especially sense 37, quot. 1627, which suggests that berth is =
‘bearing off, room-way made by bearing-off’; compare also bear off in
26 b. The early spellings byrth , birth , coincide with those of birth
n.1 ‘bearing of offspring, bringing forth,’ but it is very doubtful
whether the nautical use can go back to a time when that word had the
general sense ‘bearing’; it looks more like a new formation on bear,
without reference to the existing birth.
So the word berth is very likely closely related to birth; but this meaning is far removed from it.
According to Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (1994) the idea behind the phrase "fall down on the job" goes back to the nineteenth century:
fall down Fail to meet expectations; lag in performance. For example, It was disappointing to see him fall down on the job. This expression transfers a literal drop to a figurative one. {Second half of 1800s}
Not surprisingly, the earliest Google Books matches for the phrase occur in the context of work. The earliest of them are from the period 1904–1907. From Theodore Roberts, Hemming, the Adventurer (1904):
My Dear Captain Hemming: — Your stories reached me and were immediately set up and distributed broadcast. ... Be prepared to start East at the shortest notice, and please look up some one, an experienced man, of course, to keep an eye ob Cuba for us, should have to leave. A man who knows the country, and is immune from yellow fever, would be of more value than an experienced journalist. We have journalists here, but I fear they would fall down on the job.
In this instance "fall down on the job" unmistakably means "fail to perform adequately," but whether their probable failure—in the dispatching editor's opinion—is connected to the likelihood that they will fall ill in the tropical climate or to some other cause is not clear.
From The Wood-worker, volume 23 (1904):
We must have certain new machines, or certain new changes must be made before things will give the proper results. I find this more especially the case where the man has some scruples about being able to fill the position; he thinks that by making a whole lot of demands some of them will not be heeded, and if he falls down on the job this will be a means of letting him down easy—it was the fault of the machines, not the man.
From L.H. Robbins, "The Goddess of the Beach," originally for the Newark [New Jersey] News, reprinted in Book of the Royal Blue (October 1905), a publication of the Passenger Department of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad:
Women have been men's encouragers since Adam got the sack from the garden. But they fall down on the job too often. The young man tries to tell his troubles to his best girl, and she, like Copperfield's Dora, doesn't want to hear about disagreeable things. The married man goes home from work with a burden of care upon his shoulders, and his wife wants to talk of the shortcomings of the washer-woman, the iceman or the grocer.
Here we already have not only a clearly metaphorical falling down on the job, but a clearly figurative job: acting as "men's encouragers."
And finally, from James Creamer, "Referendum Results," in Machinists' Monthly Journal (February 1907):
I also wish to to remind those would-be reformer that the duties of a Grand Lodge officer are somewhat different from the usual routine of a local lodge. It is all work and I am of the opinion that some who think it easy would soon fall down on the job or under it.
Best Answer
The first instance of the Chicken Little story that a Google Books search finds is from "Remarkable Story of Chicken Little: An Occurrence of Everyday Life," in the [New York] Gazette of the Union and The Golden Rule (December 9, 1848):
In this version of the story, all of the barnyard fowl blame the larks for breaking up the sky and causing it to fall—which is why Hen Pen, Duck Luck, Goose Loose, and the rest turn to Fox Lox (well known as a foe of larks) for help. Interestingly larks are connected to an earlier commentary on skies falling. From "Debate on the Bank of the United States" (April 13, 1810), in The American Register, or General Repository of History, Politics and Science (1811):
Mr Taylor was by no means the first person to cite this aphorism. From Humphrey Mackworth, The Principles of a Member of the Black List: Set Forth by Way of a Dialogue (1702):
James Howell, Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages (1659) lists "When the Sky falls we shall catch Larks" as an English proverb.
William Nicholls, A Conference with a Theist (1696) cites a cataclysmic skyfall that he claims is part of a Chinese origin myth:
However, the threat of the sky falling had been discussed since the days of the Old Testament prophets. From an 1852 translation of John Calvin, Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah (originally written in 1556):
One of the earliest English writings to treat the possibility of the sky's falling as a spurious concern is John Bramhall, "An Answer to Monsieur de la Militière his Epistle to the King of Great-Britain," appended to Théophile Brachet La Milletière, The Victory of Truth for the Peace of the Church: To the King of Great Britain; to Invite Him to Embrace the Roman-Catholick Faith (1653):
It thus appears that the Chicken Little story plays on two traditions: mythical descriptions of the sky falling and its effects on humanity, and jocular or scornful dismissals of the same possibility.