Chrysti The Wordsmith: Tempest in a Teapot

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. A tempest in a teapot is a big fuss over a small matter. An uproar about a trivial thing the expression tempest in a teapot transported from England was well-established in America by the mid 19th century in the newspaper the Columbia spa of Columbia Pa. an article accused some Columbia citizens of creating a tempest in a teapot over one Katie Paterson the first African-American girl to graduate from the local public high school in 1879. Margaret Mitchell had her Southern heroine utter the phrase in the 1936 novel Gone With The Wind. Mitchell wrote I consider the whole affair a tempest in a teapot said Scarlett coldly English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic have used other similar phrases to express the same sentiment in the sixteen hundreds. It was a storm in a cream bowl or a storm in a wash basin. The current British equivalent is storm in a

teacup. The Spanish version is to drown in a glass of water in French. It's a storm in a glass of water. All these expressions were likely inspired by a phrase taken from the writings of Cicero the Roman lawyer and philosopher who lived from 1 0 6 to 43 B.C. but he rendered it make waves in a ladle. I'm Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman Montana. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.