a storm in a teacup

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vectra

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Hello everyone,

What would you say to the following comments?

I have never heard anyone say "a storm in a teacup". It's always "a tempest in a teacup". You can see that the alliteration is important in this expression.
You can't really say that someone will "throw their book at someone". This is fixed as "throw the book at someone". It's always "the".
The word "tempest" is so archaic that it's doubtful that the expression "tempest in a teapot" originated in America. This has to be one of those British expressions that the British have stopped using but that remain in the US and Canada. They have also stopped using the participle "gotten" and stopped using "fall" to mean "autumn", both of which came from Britain also, so it's not unusual that they would lose an expression like that.
we don't use British slang where I live.

With "storm" it sounds to me like someone trying to simplify the real expression for ESL learners.
Sometimes people and publishers do simplify the English language for that purpose. Since I had never heard the expression said that way outside an ESL context, I assumed it was one of these simplifications.

These are exchanges of opinion about the idiom 'a storm in a teacup' between an American scholar living in Detroit and some people living in Europe. Is it possible that people in America have never heard about this expression, I mean 'a storm in a teacup'?

Thank you for the time and help.
 

vil

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Hi vectra,

Probably you have never seen also the book “The Masters” by C. P. Shaw.

Here is a brief excerpt of it:

“Perhaps it is a storm in a tea-cup,” said Crawford… “Still we must try and calm things down.”

a storm in a tea-cup = une tempete dans un verre d’eau = exiatre fluctus in simpulo

= major commotion over a trivial matter, major fuss over an unimportant issue

http://www.answers.com/a%20storm%20in%20a%20teacup

V.
 

vectra

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Hello Vil,
The reson I posted this question is when I first created my cartoon based on the idioms we study at my university, I used the idiom 'a storm in a teacup', the one I have been using since my student days.
Then I received some comments from native speakers, including some from the USA. They pointed out that they use 'a tempest in a teacup'.
I got curious as I had never come across this expression before, and posted this question on this forum.
As for me, I stick to BrE as it is the official policy of my university.
Thank you for such a prompt reply.
 
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5jj

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I have never heard anyone say "a storm in a teacup". It's always "a tempest in a teacup". You can see that the alliteration is important in this expression.
I, a speaker of Br E, have heard only 'a storm in a teacup'; that is the expression I use.
5
 
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Route21

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Hi vectra

Many thanks, Vil, for the reference. As a NES (Brit), I have never ever come across the term a "tempest in a teacup" before, even though I have regularly worked with many American colleagues . It appears to be an exclusively American term. As your (Vil's) reference says, the British version predates the American version by hundreds of years!

The term "fall" is an American expression, as noted in fall - definition of fall by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. which quotes from both American and British English dictionaries. The Brittish seasons have always been spring, summer, autumn and winter.

"Gotten" is also exclusively American: gotten - definition of gotten by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Sorry, vectra, but you can't blame any of them as originating from the UK or representing British slang!

I trust that your original comments were "tongue in cheek".

Best regards
R21
 
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birdeen's call

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BobK

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...
Then I received some comments from native speakers, including some from the USA. They pointed out that they use 'a tempest in a teacup'.
...

What part of the USA? Maybe parts of the USA with large French or Spanish linguistic backgrounds prefer a word that sounds more like tempête or tempesta. I, like many other British contributors, have never heard 'tempest in a tea-cup'.

b
 

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birdeen's call

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I doubt this one (actually the others too, but this one in particular).

I think "gotten" was the original past participle of "get", as illustrated by derivatives such as "forgotten", "begotten", and perhaps most tellingly, "ill-gotten" (as in ill-gotten gains).
Old English didn't have the verb at all. It existed only in compounds. Here's what OED has to say about the Middle English version:

The forms of pa. pple. retaining the original vowel (ON. getten) are found in literature down to the 16th c., and in the north midlands and Yorkshire getten is still the dialectal form. From the beginning of the English history of the vb., however, it has, like most verbs with ME. open e in the present stem, tended to assume the conjugation of vbs. of the e, a, o, series (originally confined to roots ending in a liquid); thus in the 13th c. we find geten, gat, goten parallel with stelen, stal, stolen. In the 16th c. the pa. t. was often got by assimilation to the pa. pple.; in the 17th c. this became the usual form, though gat is used in the Bible of 1611 and still occurs in archaistic poetry. I England the form gotten of the pa. pple. is almost obsolete (exc. dial.) being superseded by got; in U.S. literature gotten is still very common, although Webster 1864 gave it as 'obsolescent'.
 

SoothingDave

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This American knows "tempest in a teapot" but has never heard it phrased as a "storm." Yes, the alliteration makes the phrase work.
 

BobK

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''Fall' and 'gotten' sailed to America in the speech of the Founding Fathers; they were dialectal options, used long before anyone could claim that anything was 'the Br. Eng. version'. End of story. (I have to admit that the very common 'That's Am. Eng.' claims are rather tiresome.)

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riquecohen

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Is it possible that people in America have never heard about this expression, I mean 'a storm in a teacup'?

I'm a "tempest in a teapot" person myself, but certainly I and other average Americans would have no trouble understanding "a storm in a teacup."
 

vectra

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Hello everyone,
The whole thing with 'a storm in a teacup' started in the course of an interesting discussion on how best to learn English idioms. I offered my own tuppenceworth and wrote 'To be frank, I sometimes make my students use the idioms from the unit we are studying in their speech either during presentations or in dialogues they make beforehand.
Here are some funny examples:
-I hope you do not drag your feet over signing the contract.
-I think you will not string me along with your prices.
But in time, they stop making such funny mistakes and start using idioms the right way. Besides, I always sent them the replies I receive from native speakers.
There is another extreme though. Some of my students try to squeeze as many idioms as possible into a short dialogue. The reason, I think, is my cartoons in which I tried to do the same. Here are the links: revised Sales Manager and Erick
Svetlana and Sergei revised edition
After being pushed in the right direction by native speakers, I explained that too many idioms in a text is also not good.'

These are the comments I received from one of the participants living in the USA:

I've watched one of the movies, and I have these comments:

I have never heard anyone say "a storm in a teacup". It's always "a tempest in a teacup". You can see that the alliteration is important in this expression.
You can't really say that someone will "throw their book at someone". This is fixed as "throw the book at someone". It's always "the".
The word "tempest" is so archaic that it's doubtful that the expression "tempest in a teapot" originated in America. This has to be one of those British expressions that the British have stopped using but that remain in the US and Canada. They have also stopped using the participle "gotten" and stopped using "fall" to mean "autumn", both of which came from Britain also, so it's not unusual that they would lose an expression like that.
people where I live (two-thirds of the world's native English speakers) don't generally use British localisms. "A storm in a teacup" is not worldwide standard English, so I don't happen to have heard or read it. We grow up reading as much British literature as American, we get a lot of British TV and BBC news on the radio, but "a storm in a teacup" was completely new to me today, and I thought it was an ESL simplification of "a tempest in a teapot". If you looked at the dictionary entry on it that was posted, you'll have noticed that the "storm" version is British and Austrialian. That means it's used by only a relatively small minority of native English speakers, so it's understandable that I might never have heard it.

As for me Vectra, I have enriched my knowledge of English idioms by learning a new expression - a tempest in a teacup.
Now I know that a storm in a teacup is used mainly in Britain, a tempest in a teacup is preferred by Americans.
 
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Barb_D

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Tempest in a teaPOT for the Americans.

I found this article interesting: Tempest in a teapot

Especially this (I've added the bold): In fact, the teacup wasn't the first location of the said storm, nor was the teapot. The phrase probably derives from the writing of Cicero, in De Legibus, circa 52BC. The translation ... often given as "He was stirring up billows in a ladle". Other cultures have versions of the phrase in their own languages. The translation of the Netherlands version is 'a storm in a glass of water', and the Hungarian 'tempest in a potty'. Duke of Ormond's letters to the Earl of Arlington, 1678, include..., is but a storm in a cream bowl." And this: The Gentleman's Magazine, 1830, records Lord Thurlow's phrase, a storm in a wash-hand basin."
 
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