![]() "Each campaign, compared with those of Europe, has been only, in Lord Thurlow's phrase, a storm in a wash-hand basin." is but a storm in a cream bowl."Īlso, before the 'teacup/teapot' versions were well-established, another nobleman came up with a version that didn't involve the tea-table at all. The Duke of Ormond's letters to the Earl of Arlington, 1678, include this: ![]() The first user of the expression in English made no mention of tea-making, although he wasn't far away. The translation of the Netherlands version is 'a storm in a glass of water', and the Hungarian 'a tempest in a potty'. Other cultures have versions of the phrase in their own languages. The translation of his "Excitabat fluctus in simpulo" is often given as "He was stirring up billows in a ladle". The expression probably derives from the writing of Cicero, in De Legibus, circa 52BC. As we will see, the phrase is really ' bad weather in a domestic receptacle of your choice'. ![]() In fact, neither the teacup nor the teapot were the first location of the said storm. 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. What's the origin of the phrase 'Tempest in a teapot'?
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