Carl Guttenberg's 1778 Tea-Tax Tempest, with exploding 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, Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius, 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 une tempête dans un verre d'eau ('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]

In 2008, Fall Out Boy used the phrase "Tempest in a Teacup" as lyrics in their song 'Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet'

Other languages

A similar phrase exists in numerous other languages:

See also

References

  1. ^ Christine Ammer, The American Heritage dictionary of idioms, p. 647, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997 ISBN 0-395-72774-X, 9780395727744
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ Bartlett, John (1891). Familiar quotations: a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature. Little, Brown, and company. p. 767.
  4. ^ "Whence the phrase "a tempest in a teapot"?". Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: A Popular Journal of General Literature. 43. March 1889.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ "A Tempest in a Teapot". Hartford Herald: 8. July 10, 1907.
  7. ^ Blackwood, William (1825). "Scotch Poets, Hogg and Campbell". Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. 17: 112.
  8. ^ "Tempest in a teapot". The Phrase Finder. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  9. ^ Sinclair, Catherine (1836). Modern accomplishments ; or, The march of intellect. Waugh and Innes. p. 204. storm in a teacup.
  10. ^ "Storm in a wash-hand basin (pre-1938)". Google Books search. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
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