![]() "As for your father's good-humoured jests being ever taken up as a serious affair, it really is like raising a storm in a teacup. The Scottish novelist Catherine Sinclair wrote a novel of fashionable society life, Modern Accomplishments, or the march of intellect, in 1838: This appears to be neither original nor English as it is later than the versions above, and the first mention that I can find of it also hails from north of the border. What is the 'tempest raging o'er the realms of ice'? A tempest in a teapot!įinally, we come to the 'storm in a teacup' version of the phrase that we English might imagine is the 'proper' original version. Tempest in a teapot (American English), or storm in a teacup (British English), is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1825, included this: 'Tempest in a teapot' is the version that is used most often in the USA but which nevertheless appears to have a Scottish rather than an American origin. "Each campaign, compared with those of Europe, has been only, in Lord Thurlow's phrase, a storm in a wash-hand basin." is but a storm in a cream bowl."Īlso, before the 'teacup/teapot' versions were well-established, another nobleman came up with a version that didn't involve the tea-table at all. tempest in a teacup A great disturbance or uproar over a matter of little or no importance. ![]() The Duke of Ormond's letters to the Earl of Arlington, 1678, include this: The first user of the expression in English made no mention of tea-making, although he wasn't far away. The translation of the Netherlands version is 'a storm in a glass of water', and the Hungarian 'a tempest in a potty'. Other cultures have versions of the phrase in their own languages. The translation of his "Excitabat fluctus in simpulo" is often given as "He was stirring up billows in a ladle". The expression probably derives from the writing of Cicero, in De Legibus, circa 52BC. Typically, this saying only uses business language. ![]() It’s another way of asking someone to RSVP on an invitation or information. Tempest in a teapot ( American English ), or also phrased as storm in a teacup ( British English ), or tempest in a teacup is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. As we will see, the phrase is really ' bad weather in a domestic receptacle of your choice'. If someone sends you an email or letter with please confirm receipt in the title or at the end of the writings, they are asking you to let them know that you received and read the information. In fact, neither the teacup nor the teapot were the first location of the said storm. Readers from England who get irate that 'a tempest in a teapot' is a mangling of their perfectly good phrase 'a storm in a teacup' and that this US interloper only exists because of the neat alliteration of tempest and teapot need to calm down the tempest version is the earlier form and it isn't American in origin. What's the origin of the phrase 'Tempest in a teapot'? Household items What's the meaning of the phrase 'Tempest in a teapot'?Ī tempest in a teapot is a small or insignificant event that is over-reacted to, as if it were of considerably more consequence.
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