Tempest in a teapot
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. There are also lesser known or earlier variants, such as storm in a cream bowl, tempest in a glass of water, storm in a wash-hand basin,[1] and storm in a glass of water.
Etymology
Cicero, in the first century BC, in his De Legibus, used a similar phrase in Latin, possibly the precursor to the modern expressions, Script error: No such module "Lang"., translated: "For Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle, as the saying is".[2] Then in the early third century AD, Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae, has Dorion ridiculing the description of a tempest in the Nautilus of Timotheus by saying that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.[3] The phrase also appeared in its French form Script error: No such module "Lang". ('a tempest in a glass of water'), to refer to the popular uprising in the Republic of Geneva near the end of the eighteenth century.[4]
One of the earliest occurrences in print of the modern version is in 1815, where Britain's Lord Chancellor Thurlow, sometime during his tenure of 1783–1792, is quoted as referring to a popular uprising on the Isle of Man as a "tempest in a teapot".[5] Also Lord North, Prime Minister of Great Britain, is credited for popularizing this phrase as characterizing the outbreak of American colonists against the tax on tea.[6] This sentiment was then satirized in Carl Guttenberg's 1778 engraving of the Tea-Tax Tempest (shown above right), where Father Time flashes a magic lantern picture of an exploding teapot to America on the left and Britannia on the right, with British and American forces advancing towards the teapot. Just a little later, in 1825, in the Scottish journal Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a critical review of poets Hogg and Campbell also included the phrase "tempest in a teapot".[7]
The first recorded instance of the British English version, "storm in teacup", occurs in Catherine Sinclair's Modern Accomplishments in 1838.[8][9] There are several instances though of earlier British use of the similar phrase "storm in a wash-hand basin".[10]
Other languages
A similar phrase exists in numerous other languages:
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('a storm in a cup')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a teacup')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Lang-zh ('winds and waves in a teacup; storm in a teapot')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a large storm in a small glass')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('typhoon in a teacup')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- German: Sturm im Wasserglas ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a teacup')
- Hindi: चाय की प्याली में तूफ़ान ('storm in a teacup')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('a storm in a glass')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('a typhoon in a teacup')
- Template:Langx ('to stir up waves in a ladle')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a tea cup')
- Template:Langx (Bokmål)/Script error: No such module "Lang". (Nynorsk) ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('to make a mountain out of hay - or a haystack')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water/a tempest in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('a storm in a glass of water')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a glass of water')
- Turkish: Script error: No such module "Lang". ('storm in a spoon of water')
- Telugu: Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a tea cup')
- Template:Langx ('storm in a tea cup')
- Ukrainian: Script error: No such module "Lang". Script error: No such module "lang". ('a tempest in a glass of water')
- Urdu: چائے کی پیالی میں طوفان Script error: No such module "lang". ('storm in a teacup')
- Template:Langx a shturem in a gloz vaser ('a storm in a glass of water'), or Script error: No such module "Lang". a bure in a lefl vaser ('a tempest in a spoon of water')
See also
- American and British English differences
- Make a mountain out of a molehill
- The Mountain in Labour gives birth to a mouse
References
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- ↑ Christine Ammer, The American Heritage dictionary of idioms, p. 647, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997 Template:ISBN, 9780395727744
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