What does the saying a tempest in a teapot mean?
: a great commotion over an unimportant matter.
What is the precursor to the teapot?
The teapot was invented in China during the Yuan Dynasty. It was probably derived from ceramic kettles and wine pots, which were made of bronze and other metals and were a feature of Chinese life for thousands of years. Tea preparation during previous dynasties did not use a teapot.
How do you use tempest in a teapot in a sentence?
Bethel further said that it was a tempest in a teapot that would blow over. In reality, the firestorm of publicity engulfing Gaughan was nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. To some in this small town, it’s a tempest in a teapot that smacks of partisan politics.
How do you use a storm in a teacup?
But she refused to apologise over the ‘storm in a teacup’ row. But it could be a storm in a teacup. It’s an entertaining storm in a teacup. He insisted the row was a ‘storm in a teacup’.
When was the teapot invented?
Arguably the first teapot was created in the Jiangsu province of China in 1500. Early teapots from this region were “Yixing” teapots. In Chinese, this translates to “purple sand pot,” a reference to the distinctive purple sand clay that was plentiful in that area and used in earthenware vessels.
Who said tempest in a teapot?
The basic sentiment of a tempest in a teapot and a storm in a teacup seems to have originated in 52 B.C.E. in the writings of Cicero, in a phrase that translates as stirring up billows in a ladle.
What is the meaning of storm in a cup?
: a situation in which people are very angry or upset about something that is not important The whole controversy turned out to be a storm in a teacup.
How would you elaborate the idiomatic expression storm in a cup?
If you say that a situation is a storm in a teacup, you mean people are very upset or annoyed about something that is not at all important and will soon be forgotten. Parnell said that he thought the whole matter a storm in a teacup, and that it would pass quickly.
Where does the phrase a tempest in a teapot come from?
Readers from England who get irate that ‘a tempest in a teapot’ is a mangling of their perfectly good phrase ‘a storm in a teacup’ and that this US interloper only exists because of the neat alliteration of tempest and teapot need to calm down; the tempest version is the earlier form and it isn’t American in origin.
Is there a tempest in a glass of water?
There are also lesser known or earlier variants, such as tempest in a teacup, storm in a cream bowl, tempest in a glass of water, storm in a wash-hand basin, and storm in a glass of water .
Where did the saying ” Tempest in a ladle ” come from?
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”.