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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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Good Gawd in plaid spats with bows!
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(When faced with impossible task, deadline, etc)
"Might as well try to piss up a rope."
(To agree with above you say:) "... on City Hall steps."
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, its an old phrase and I know what it means, but does anyone know where "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" comes from?
dxb
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Joined: Dec 2000
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but does anyone know where "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" comes from?
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not sure, but you'd be as well off doing that as taking coals to Newcastle.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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this kind of advice you'd be as well off doing that as taking coals to Newcastle--
and a token* might get you some place..
the red is common NY comment to any information that is considered worthless, or redundant. until the year 2000, when magnetic swipe cards became popular, the subway fare was a token..
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newbie
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newbie
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My faves:
"May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb"
"He's not a Messiah. He's a very naughty boy!" (Life of Brian)
"As God is my witness, I'll never..."(fill in the blank).
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but does anyone know where "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" comes from?
This is what I found, from the following site: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z17F52EB which is a Welsh / English dictionary (of sorts).
Welsh: yr oen yn dysgu'r ddafad i bori ("the lamb teaching the sheep how to graze") said of the inexperienced presuming to know better than experienced people, children who think they know better than the parents; 'teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs'
I'm not sure that this is really explaining much, merely giving another phrase which means a similar thing. However, here's the link for what Quinion has to say: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tea1.htm which gives a bit more background.
See the shame about having this be a 'new posters' thread is that tsuwm is probably the person who knows the other places to look for answers to these kinda questions, and he probably ain't here looking at this thread. Sigh... tsuwm (or any other 'oldies') if you're reading, willing and able, wanna PM me or dxb with any insights you might have? Ta!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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you're doin' just fine without me, hev. (wassamatta, you don't like Quinion's take?)
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you're doin' just fine without me, hev. (wassamatta, you don't like Quinion's take?)
's OK... just couldn't think of the other site you usually quote, and was too lazy to go searchin' for it! Thought I'd drag you in here instead! Ha ha ... at least that bit woiked! 
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you're doin' just fine without me, hev. (wassamatta, you don't like Quinion's take?)
Yeahbutt® I didn't have the OED to quote from... tsuwm sent me this info in PM and I post here with his permission.
"interestingly, the phrase 'suck eggs' turned up ten (10!) hits in the OED.
here is the earliest citation (prolly same as Quinion)
1707 J. Stevens tr. Quevedo's Com. Wks. (1709) 348 You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs."
Thanks tsuwm (and the OED)!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Hmmm - I guess I'm still puzzled by the image of this lady sucking eggs. OK, she enjoyed the taste of raw egg, but why did she want to preserve the shells?
When I was a boy we used to collect birds' eggs. There were rules to this, for example you only took cold eggs and never disturbed the parent birds as they might desert the nest. When we found a cold egg that we needed for our collection we "blew" the egg. This was achieved by piercing a small hole each end of the egg and blowing through the egg to remove the contents (albumen? - cross threading here) leaving the shell intact. This could only be done successfully if the egg was sterile, reinforcing the need to collect cold eggs only. Is this still done today? I don't know; parents are much more protective of young children today so the opportunities may not be there.
dxb
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