Nutshell [nuht-shel]
The term in a nutshell refers
to a short description, or a story told in no more words than can physically
fit in the shell of a nut. But the origin of the term tests those limits with
the most longwinded of tales. The ancient Roman encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder
claimed that a copy of Homer's The Iliad existed that was
small enough to fit inside a walnut shell. Almost 2000 years later in the early
1700s the Bishop of Avranches tested Pliny's theory by writing out the epic in
tiny handwriting on a walnut-sized piece of paper and lo and behold, he did it!
Beans
English speakers have been using the word
"spill" to mean "divulge secret information" since 1547,
but the spilling of beans in particular may predate the term
by millennia. Many historians claim that secret societies in ancient Greece
voted by dropping black or white beans into a clay urn. To spill those beans
would be to reveal the results of a secret vote before the ballots had been
counted. Kidney he
lives, pinto he dies!
Pie
As many of us know from experience, it is not so
easy to make a pie. A buttery crust can fall apart in the deftest of hands and
around Thanksgiving many pumpkin "pies" might be more accurately
deemed pumpkin "soups." On the other hand (or for our purposes)
anyone can become an expert at eating a pie. Popularized in the U.S. in the
late 1800s, the most notable use of pie to mean "simple
and pleasurable" appears in Mark Twain's The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. Part of our next food idiom makes a home in many pies,
especially in America.
Apples
Apples and oranges refers to two incommensurable items, i.e. a
comparison of things that cannot be compared. Though they are both fruits,
apples and oranges are separated by color, taste, juiciness and 89.2 million
years of evolution. The idiom first appeared as apples and oysters in
John Ray's 1670 Proverb collection, and equivalent terms exist in many
languages: "grandmothers and toads" in Serbian to "love and the
eye of an axe" in Argentine Spanish. What other funny fruits turn unusual phrases?
Bananas
Not only does going bananas mean
"to go crazy," the term can point to things for which you've
gone bananas, or obsessions. According to lexicographer E.J. Lighter, going
bananas refers to the term going ape often used in
American popular culture in the second half of the 1900s. Apes were seen as
crazy by the mid-century media, and what do apes eat? Bananas! For example,
here at Dictionary.com, we're bananas for grammar but we go bananas when people
end sentences with prepositions.
Tea
Though English is spoken all over the world,
there are certain idioms that recall its, well, Englishness. Popularized in
British Edwardian slang, cup of tea originally referred to
something pleasant or agreeable. The negative usage as in not my cup of
tea arose during World War II as a more polite way to say you didnt
like something. "You dont say someone gives you a pain in the neck,"
explained Alister Cooke in his 1944 Letter from America. You just remark, he's
not my cup of tea.'"
Cheese
Perhaps the most favourite idiom on
this list, the word cheese can refer to a person or thing that is important
or splendid as well as to the delicious dairy product. The usage is thought to
have origins in Urdu, from the Persian chiz meaning "thing." In common usage,
"the big cheese" is a person of importance or authority, and cheese
is often associated with smiling, based on the "say cheese" method of
posing for pictures.
Eggshell
Our final idiom is our most delicate: walking on
eggshells or taking great care not to upset
someone. It is thought to have originated in politics when diplomats were
described as having the remarkable ability to tread so lightly around difficult
situations, it was as though they were walking on eggshells. In a nutshell, we
hope you go bananas for food idioms. Whether or not they're your cup of tea,
these terms are easy as pie to use and they'll make you the big cheese of any
conversation! So go ahead and spill the beans, it's just like apples and
oranges.