Tempest in a teapot
Encyclopedia
Storm in a teacup tempest in a teapot (in American English
) is an idiom
meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. There are also lesser known variants, such as storm in a cream bowl, storm in a hand-wash basin, tempest in a glass of water, and storm in a glass of water.
The American English
version of the phrase first appeared in print in the January 1838 edition of the defunct The United States Democratic Review regarding the Supreme Court
. "This collegiate tempest in a teapot might serve for the lads of the University to moot; but, surely, was unworthy the solemn adjudication attempted for it." The usage of the British English
storm in a teacup is the original and more widely used version and predates this with variations dating back over three hundred years.
Both the American and British phrases are long preceded by Cicero
's Latin "Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo". The phrase, translated literally, reads: "He was stirring up waves in a ladle".
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
) is an idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. There are also lesser known variants, such as storm in a cream bowl, storm in a hand-wash basin, tempest in a glass of water, and storm in a glass of water.
The American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
version of the phrase first appeared in print in the January 1838 edition of the defunct The United States Democratic Review regarding the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
. "This collegiate tempest in a teapot might serve for the lads of the University to moot; but, surely, was unworthy the solemn adjudication attempted for it." The usage of the British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
storm in a teacup is the original and more widely used version and predates this with variations dating back over three hundred years.
Both the American and British phrases are long preceded by Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's Latin "Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo". The phrase, translated literally, reads: "He was stirring up waves in a ladle".
Other languages
A similar phrase exists in numerous other languages:- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
: زوبعة في فنجان (a storm in a cup) - BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
: Буря в чаша вода Burya v chasha voda (storm in a glass of water) - ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
: 茶杯裡的風波、茶壺裡的風暴 (winds and waves in a teacup; storm in a teapot) - CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
: Bouře ve sklenici vody (a storm in a glass of water) - DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
: En storm i et glas vand (a storm in a glass of water) - DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Storm in een glas water (a storm in a glass of water) - EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
: Granda frakaso en malgranda glaso (a large storm in a small glass) - EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
: Torm veeklaasis (storm in a glass of water) - FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Myrsky vesilasissa (storm in a glass of water) - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: une tempête dans un verre d'eau (a storm in a glass of water) - GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: ein Sturm im Wasserglas (a storm in a glass of water) - GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: πνιγόμαστε σε μια κουταλιά νερό (to drown in a spoon of water) - HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
: סערה בכוס תה Se'arah bekos teh (storm in a teacup) - HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
: Vihar a biliben (a storm in the potty) - IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
: Stormur í vatnsglasi (a storm in a glass of water) - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: una tempesta in un bicchiere d'acqua (a storm in a glass of water) - JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
: コップの中の嵐 koppu no naka no arashi (a storm in a glass) - LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Excitare fluctus in simpulo (to stir up waves in a ladle) - LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
: vētra ūdens glāzē (storm in a tea cup) - LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
: Audra stiklinėje (storm in a glass) - NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
: Storm í et vannglass (a storm in a glass of water) - PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Burza w szklance wody (a storm in a glass of water) - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: Tempestade em copo d'água / Uma tempesta num copo d'água (storm in a glass of water / a tempest in a glass of water) - RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: Furtună într-un pahar cu apă (storm in a glass of water) - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Буря в стакане burya v stakane (a tempest in a glass) - SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: Una tormenta en un vaso de agua (a storm in a glass of water) - SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Storm i ett vattenglas (storm in a glass of water) - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Bir kaşık suda fırtına (storm in a spoon of water) - Telugu: Tea kappu lo thufaanu (storm in a tea cup)
- UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
: Буря в склянці води (a tempest in a glass of water) - Transliteration: Buria v sklyantsi vody
Music and Art References
- Red Hot Chili PeppersRed Hot Chili PeppersRed Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
recorded a song titled "Storm In a Teacup", which appears on their album Stadium ArcadiumStadium ArcadiumStadium Arcadium is the ninth studio album by American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. The album was released on May 9, 2006, on Warner Bros. Records. The album produced five singles: "Dani California", "Tell Me Baby", "Snow ", "Desecration Smile", and "Hump de Bump"...
. - Storm in a TeacupStorm in a Teacup (film)Storm in a Teacup is a 1937 British romantic comedy film starring Vivien Leigh, Rex Harrison, Cecil Parker, and Sara Allgood. It is based on the German play Sturm im Wasserglas by Bruno Frank. A reporter writes an article that embarrasses a politician...
is a 1937 romantic comedy film starring Vivien LeighVivien LeighVivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
, Rex HarrisonRex HarrisonSir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
, and Cecil ParkerCecil ParkerCecil Parker was an English character and comedy actor with a distinctive husky voice, who usually played supporting roles in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969....
. It is based on the German play Sturm im Wasserglas by Bruno FrankBruno FrankBruno Frank was a German author, poet, dramatist, and humanist.Frank studied law and philosophy in Munich, where he later worked as a dramatist and novelist until the Reichstag fire in 1933...
. A German film based on Frank's play and directed by Josef von BákyJosef von BakyJosef von Báky was a Hungarian filmmaker. He was also known as Josef v. Baky and József Baky. He was born in the town of Zombor in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, since 1920 Sombor in Yugoslavia., . He worked as an assistant to Geza von Bolvary.He worked as director or...
was released in 1960. - Empyres, a one man band featuring Chris from A Black Rose Burial recorded a song titled "Tempest In A Teapot".