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I'm an Amazon. [an amaz-in' one]
Capitalized? Is that your titular designation?
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Is the storm in a tea cup version standard Brit?
Woo hoo - it looks like no one else actually answered this bit so here's my take on it.
I don't know about Brit, but it is definitely standard Oz English to say it this way... in fact, I don't think I'd ever heard Tempest in a tea cup before now. It definitely sounds more melodramatic than a storm in same tea cup.
Hev
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Thank you, hev. You win a prize for being the first person to actually answer the question. But now I'm not sure I asked it right. I remember the difference being in the use of tea cup rather than the USn tea pot but the tempest part being the same. Are you saying that storm in a tea cup is standard in Oz?
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Dear Faldage,
Oh, you mean we're actually supposed to answer questions on this board?? Ah! I've been completely misled in my understanding of AWAD! I thought we were supposed to avoid answering questions on this board! Eureka! I see the light!
Back to the Mad Teaparty, WordWoozy
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Oh, you mean we're actually supposed to answer questions on this board?? Ah! I've been completely misled in my understanding of AWAD!
well, if you've been following the example of Faldage....
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Pooh-Bah
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Storm in a teacup is definitely standard Britspeak. You could only conjure up a storm in a teapot if you left the lid off. As for a tempest in a teacup or pot...well I've never heard it used, but it seems to be an acceptable alternative and perhaps more poetic as well as being alliterative.
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Are you saying that storm in a tea cup is standard in Oz?
Oooh, ooh, more questions to answer! I guess I only win second prize this time around, because dxb responded for the Brit speakers. To answer your Oz related question... it's definitely a cup! We have storms in cups, not tempests in tea pots.
Hev
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well, since this has become Much Ado about Nothing, ponder these weighty words: Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the “Nautilus” of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan. -Athenaeus, The Deipnosophistshttp://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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people skilled in dinner conversation. but I digress... b. Phr. tea-pot tempest, tempest in a tea-pot (U.S.): = storm in a tea-cup (see TEA-CUP 4). Also in similar phrases. 1854 ANDREWS Lat. Dict. s.v. Simpulum, Excitare fluctus in simpulo,..to raise a tempest in a teapot. Cic. Leg. 3. 16, 36. 1891 Cent. Dict. s.v. Tempest, A tempest in a tea-pot, a great disturbance over a small matter. 1896 Peterson Mag. Jan. 104/1 What a ridiculous tea-pot tempest! 1928 R. CAMPBELL Wayzgoose i. 16 Storms in a teapot often have occurred. 1942 T. DUBOIS Body goes round & Round xiii. 172 You have been indulging in your favourite occupation of stirring up a tempest in a teapot. 1973 Times 1 Aug. 6/5 Senator Ervin said the issue of whether the subpoenas were continuing was ‘a difference in a teapot’.http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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an annual banquet or picnic held by employees of a printing establishment (Aug. 24)
[forgive my apocrisis]
Simpulum, Excitare fluctus in simpulo.
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