[lit-ideas] Re: My Cup of Tea
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 17:14:44 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 1/2/2014 3:53:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Then we might compare it with this kind of stuff. In the light of that
comparison, we may move on to discuss who is really entitled to use
expressions like "tempest in a tea cup";
Well, surely a 'tea cup' is still a different (figuratively) animal from
(or 'than' as some of my friends prefer) what the title reads, 'my cup of
tea'.
More below.
Cheers,
Speranza
---
L. R. Horn uses the expression 'squatitive negation' for expressions like
'cup of tea'.
It seems that if we study the English corpus collected by the University of
London, the most frequent (and thus used) collocation, seems to be:
"NOT my cup of tea".
Surely, "not my tea cup" (as per 'tempest in a tea cup') seems futile.
The source of it all seems to have been an engraving by Carl Guttenberg,
dated, 1778, and entitled,
"Tea-Tax Tempest".
The engraving represents an exploding teapot meant to symbolise the
American Revolution.
Father Time, on the right, 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 each other
While "tempest in a tea pot", after the engraving, seems to be the
favourite American version of the idiom, the Brits stick with "storm in a tea
cup"
-- rather than the more correct, 'tempest in a cup WITH tea'.
The implicature, as Grice notes, having studied the corpus, seems to be
that some small event (by some standards) has been exaggerated "out of
proportion".
"There may be a further implicature to the effect that this is a bad
thing", he adds.
There are lesser known variants to be found in the provinces, such as
"tempest in a teacup", "storm in a cream bowl", "tempest in a glass of water",
"storm in a wash-hand basin", and, in the Italian version, "storm in a
glass of water".
"The implicatures seem to be _more or less_ the same," Grice observes.
Before the Revolutionary engraving, Cicero, in the first century BC, in his
"De Legibus", did use a similar phrase in Latin, possibly the precursor to
the modern expressions.
Cicero said:
"Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius".
"Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle"
He adds, "as the saying goes", implicating that the silly idiom is not _to
his credit_.
In the early 3rd 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.
Athenaeus adds that Dorion was "obviously drunk" when he uttered the
convoluted phrase, and possibly the implicature was in any case lacking.
The same phrase, oddly, also appeared in its French form "une tempete dans
une verre d'eau", literally, as per the Italian variant, a tempest in a
glass of water.
The French applies the expression with a particular implicature in mind: to
refer to the popular uprising in the Republic of Geneva near the end of
the 17th century. The Genevans are not amused.
One of the earliest occurrences in print of the modern version is in 1815,
where Britain's Lord Chancellor Thurlow, during his tenure of 1783 is
quoted in February 15 as referring to a popular uprising on the Isle of Man as
a
"tempest in a tea-pott".
He also spelled (or spelt) "Man" "Mann" and "Isle" "Ile" (Ile of Mann).
Since the location of this island is such that tempest usually occur there,
the figure of speech is more of a 'zeugma' than a 'metaphor' (or implicature
simpliciter).
On the _other_ hand, 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.
This sentiment only THEN was then satirized in Carl Guttenberg's famous
1778 engraving of the Tea-Tax Tempest, 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", with still a divergent implicature (possibly
as indicating that Hogg's (or Campbell's) poetic style was too grandiose for
Blackwood.
The first recorded instance of the British English version, "storm in tea
cup", occurs in Miss Catherine Sinclair's Cook Book of 1838 (ch. xiv, "The
ceremony of tea"). She _might_ have used the expression _literally_ (rather
than implicaturally or metaphorically).
There are several instances though of earlier British use of the similar
phrase "storm in a wash-hand basin", and even dirtier ones.
Phrases triggering the very exact implicature (cfr. 'a box of pizza')
exists in numerous other languages:
In Arabic, we say: زوبعة في فنجان -- a storm in a cup.
In Bengali, the idiom goes: তীলকে তাল করা, a storm in a cup --
Note that in these two idioms the type of cup is only _indefinitely_
referred to (and not as necessarily a 'cup with tea').
In Bulgarian, the idiom goes, "Буря в чаша вода, storm in a glass of
water.
The Chinese speak of 茶杯裡的風波、茶壺裡的風暴, winds and waves in a teacup,
where 'winds and waves' is a synechdoche for the simpler English lexeme,
'storm'. Chinese is ideographical.
The Czech proverb is: Bouře ve sklenici vody, a storm in a glass of water.
In Danish, the saying is "En storm i et glas vand", a storm in a glass of
water.
In Dutch, "een storm in een glas water" same: a storm in a glass of water
(with 'of' or 'with' deleted).
The Esperanto dictionary contains an entry: Granda frakaso en malgranda
glaso, a large storm (or fracas) in a small glass.
The Estonian version runs: Torm veeklaasis, a storm in a glass of water.
In Finnish, we say: Myrsky vesilasissa, a storm in a glass of water.
The French, since Napopleon, has been: une tempête dans un verre d'eau --
a storm in a glass of water.
Goethe, in German, translates direct from the Greek, "ein Sturm im
Wasserglas", a storm in a glass of water.
The modern Greek paragloss being, "πνιγόμαστε σε μια κουταλιά
νερό", literally, to drown in a spoon of water.
The Old Testament has in Hebrew: סערה בכוס תה, a storm in a teacup,
used prophetically.
The Hindi version is simple: तिल का ताड़ बनाना, pronounced: til ka
taad banana, and roughly translatable as "making a mountain out of rye".
The Hungarian verson runs, Vihar egy pohár vízben, a storm in a glass of
water.
The Icelandic version is 'stormur í vatnsglasi', a storm in a glass of
water.
The Italian expression is: una tempesta in un bicchiere d'acqua, a storm
in a glass of water.
The Japanese speak of コップの中の嵐, a storm in a glass (unspecified)
The Korean correlative runs: 찻잔속의 태풍: literally: a typhoon in a
teacup.
The Latin version in Aquinas, "Summa Theologica" is Excitare fluctus in
simpulo (to stir up waves in a ladle.
In Latvian, it's "vētra ūdens glāzē", a storm in a glass of water
The Lithuanian variant goes: Audra stiklinėje, a storm in a glass
(unspecified)
In Malayalam it's "ചായക്കോപ്പയിലെ കൊടുങ്കാറ്റ്" a storm in a
tea cup.
In Norwegian, "storm i et vannglass or bokmål) or storm i eit vassglas
(nynorsk), collectively: a storm in a glass of water.
The Polish variant is: Burza w szklance wody, a storm in a glass of water.
The Portuguese version runs: Tempestade em copo de água or Uma tempestade
num copo de água, either a storm in a glass of water or a tempest in a
glass of water -- never tea.
The Romanian equivalent is: Furtună într-un pahar cu apă, a storm in a
glass of water.
In Russian, the tsars would say, Буря в стакане burya v stakane, "a
tempest in a glass" (liquid unspecified).
The Spanish alternative, as per Cervantes's "Quixote" is: Una tormenta en
un vaso de agua, a storm in a glass of water.
In Swedish, the idiom goes: Storm i ett vattenglas, again a storm in a
glass of water.
In Tagalog, the proverb is: Bulaklak ng dila, a flower of the tongue,
literally (but implicating: a storm in a tea cup)
The Turkish expression is Bir kaşık suda fırtına, a storm in a SPOON
(not glass) of water.
In Telugu, it's "Tea kappu lo thufaanu", a storm in a tea cup
In Tamil, we say, Theneer koppaiyil puyal, storm in a tea cup.
In Ukrainian, we write: Буря в склянці води, a tempest in a glass
of water.
In Yiddish, it's אַ שטורעם אין אַ גלאָז וואַסער, a storm in a
glass of water -- as in Hebrew and German. But there's also אַ בורע אין
אַ לעפֿל וואַסער , a squall in a spoon of water.
References
Reddall, Henry Frederic (1892). Fact, fancy, and fable: a new handbook for
ready reference on subjects commonly omitted from cyclopaedias. A.C
McClurg. p. 490.
"Whence the phrase "a tempest in a teapot"?". Lippincott's monthly
magazine: a popular journal of general literature 43. March 1889.
Kett, Henry (1814). The flowers of wit, or, A choice collection of bon
mots, both antient and modern, with biographical and critical remarks, Volume
2. Lackington, Allen, and co. p. 67.
"A Tempest in a Teapot". Hartford Herald: 8. July 10, 1907.
Blackwood, William (1825). "Scotch Poets, Hogg and Campbell". Blackwood's
Edinburgh magazine 17: 112.
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