Tempest in a teapot explained

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,, 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 ('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:

See also

Notes and References

  1. Christine Ammer, The American Heritage dictionary of idioms, p. 647, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997, 9780395727744
  2. Book: Reddall, Henry Frederic. Fact, fancy, and fable: a new handbook for ready reference on subjects commonly omitted from cyclopaedias. 1892. A.C McClurg. 490.
  3. Book: Bartlett, John. Familiar quotations: a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature. 1891. Little, Brown, and company. 767.
  4. Whence the phrase "a tempest in a teapot"?. Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: A Popular Journal of General Literature. March 1889. 43.
  5. Book: Kett, Henry. The flowers of wit, or, A choice collection of bon mots, both antient and modern, with biographical and critical remarks, Volume 2. 1814. Lackington, Allen, and co. 67.
  6. A Tempest in a Teapot. Hartford Herald. July 10, 1907. 8.
  7. Blackwood. William. Scotch Poets, Hogg and Campbell. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. 1825. 17. 112.
  8. Web site: Tempest in a teapot. The Phrase Finder. 7 January 2012.
  9. Book: Sinclair, Catherine. Modern accomplishments ; or, The march of intellect. 1836. Waugh and Innes. 204. storm in a teacup..
  10. Web site: Storm in a wash-hand basin (pre-1938). Google Books search. 7 January 2012.

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