The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "more than you can shake a stick at"

  (Phrase Origins)
  
  

  
     This 19th-century Americanism now means "an abundance"; but its
  original meaning is unclear.  Suggestions have included "more than
  one can count" (OED, AHD3), "more than one can threaten" (Charles
  Earle Funk), and "more than one can believe" (Dictionary of American
  English).  No one of these seems easy to reconcile with all the
  following citations:  "We have in Lancaster as many taverns as you
  can shake a stick at." (1818)  "This was a temperance house, and
  there was nothing to treat a friend to that was worth shaking a
  stick at."  (David Crockett, _Tour to the North and Down East_,
  1835)  "Our queen snake was [...] retiring, attended by more of her
  subjects than we even dared to shake a stick at." (1843)  "I have
  never sot eyes on anything that could shake a stick at that."
  (= "set eyes on anything that could compare with that", 1843)
  "[...] Uncle Sam [...] has more acres than you can throw a stick
  at." (1851)  "She got onto the whappiest, biggest, rustiest yaller
  moccasin that ever you shuck er stick at." (1851)
  
     A connection with the British expression "hold (the) sticks
  with", meaning "compete on equal terms with" and attested since
  1817, is not impossible.
  
     OED staff told me:  "The US usages in DAE do appear to have a
  different sense to that given in OED. [...]  All the modern examples
  I've found on our databases conform to OED's definition so I think
  this is still the most common usage."
  
     Merriam-Webster staff opined that the "count" interpretation
  "works as well for 'as many as you can shake a stick at' [...] if
  you take it to mean that there is no limit to how many of the
  objects in question one could shake one's stick at. [...]  We would
  consider 'A can't shake a stick at B' a different expression
  entirely, with a meaning similar to 'A can't hold a candle to
  B' [...]."
  
     In their 1897 work _A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant_,
  Albert Barrere and Charles Leland suggested that Dutch immigrants
  originated the expression using the Dutch word _schok_ = "to shake
  or hit."

  
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Phrase Origins: "more than you can shake a stick at"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 5109), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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