Carl Guttenberg's 1778 Tea-Tax Tempest, with exploding teapot
Tempest in a teapot (American English), or also phrased as storm in a teacup (British English), or tempest in a teacup, is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. There are also lesser known or earlier variants, such as storm in a cream bowl, tempest in a glass of water, storm in a wash-hand basin,[1] and storm in a glass of water.
Etymology
Cicero, in the first century BC, in his De Legibus, used a similar phrase in Latin, possibly the precursor to the modern expressions, Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius, translated: "For Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle, as the saying is".[2] Then in the early third century AD, Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae, has Dorion ridiculing the description of a tempest in the Nautilus of Timotheus by saying that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.[3] The phrase also appeared in its French form une tempête dans un verre d'eau ('a tempest in a glass of water'), to refer to the popular uprising in the Republic of Geneva near the end of the eighteenth century.[4]
One of the earliest occurrences in print of the modern version is in 1815, where Britain's Lord Chancellor Thurlow, sometime during his tenure of 1783–1792, is quoted as referring to a popular uprising on the Isle of Man as a "tempest in a teapot".[5] Also Lord North, Prime Minister of Great Britain, is credited for popularizing this phrase as characterizing the outbreak of American colonists against the tax on tea.[6] This sentiment was then satirized in Carl Guttenberg's 1778 engraving of the Tea-Tax Tempest (shown above right), where Father Time flashes a magic lantern picture of an exploding teapot to America on the left and Britannia on the right, with British and American forces advancing towards the teapot. Just a little later, in 1825, in the Scottish journal Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a critical review of poets Hogg and Campbell also included the phrase "tempest in a teapot".[7]
The first recorded instance of the British English version, "storm in teacup", occurs in Catherine Sinclair's Modern Accomplishments in 1838.[8][9] There are several instances though of earlier British use of the similar phrase "storm in a wash-hand basin".[10]
Other languages
A similar phrase exists in numerous other languages:
Arabic: زوبعة في فنجانzawba'a fi finjan ('a storm in a cup')
Bengali: চায়ের কাপে ঝড়cha-er cup-e jhor ('storm in a teacup')
Bulgarian: Буря в чаша водаburya v chasha voda ('storm in a glass of water')
Chinese: 茶杯裡的風波、茶壺裡的風暴 ('winds and waves in a teacup; storm in a teapot')
Czech: bouře ve sklenici vody ('a storm in a glass of water')
Danish: en storm i et glas vand ('a storm in a glass of water')
Dutch: een storm in een glas water ('a storm in a glass of water')
Esperanto: granda frakaso en malgranda glaso ('a large storm in a small glass')
Estonian: torm veeklaasis ('storm in a glass of water')
Malayalam: ചായക്കോപ്പയിലെ കൊടുങ്കാറ്റ്chaya koppayile kodunkattu ('storm in a tea cup')
Norwegian: storm i et vannglass (Bokmål)/storm i eit vassglas (Nynorsk) ('a storm in a glass of water')
Persian: از کاه کوه ساختنaz kah kouh sakhtan ('to make a mountain out of hay - or a haystack')
Polish: burza w szklance wody ('a storm in a glass of water')
Portuguese: tempestade em copo d'água/uma tempestade num copo d'água ('storm in a glass of water/a tempest in a glass of water')
Romanian: furtună într-un pahar cu apă ('storm in a glass of water')
Russian: Буря в стакане водыburya v stakane vody ('storm in a glass of water')
Serbian: Бура у чаши водеbura u čaši vode ('storm in a glass of water')
Spanish: una tormenta en un vaso de agua ('a storm in a glass of water')
Swedish: storm i ett vattenglas ('storm in a glass of water')
Turkish: bir kaşık suda fırtına ('storm in a spoon of water')
Telugu: tea kappu lo thufaanu ('storm in a tea cup')
Tamil: தேநீர் கோப்பையில் புயல் ('storm in a tea cup')
Ukrainian: Буря в склянці водиburia v sklyantsi vody ('a tempest in a glass of water')
Urdu: چائے کی پیالی میں طوفانchaye ki pyali main toofan ('storm in a teacup')
Yiddish: אַ שטורעם אין אַ גלאָז וואַסערa shturem in a gloz vaser ('a storm in a glass of water'), or אַ בורע אין אַ לעפֿל וואַסערa bure in a lefl vaser ('a tempest in a spoon of water')
^Christine Ammer, The American Heritage dictionary of idioms, p. 647, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997 ISBN0-395-72774-X, 9780395727744
^Reddall, Henry Frederic (1892). Fact, fancy, and fable: a new handbook for ready reference on subjects commonly omitted from cyclopaedias. A.C McClurg. p. 490.
^Bartlett, John (1891). Familiar quotations: a collection of passages, phrases, and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature. Little, Brown, and company. p. 767.
^"Whence the phrase "a tempest in a teapot"?". Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: A Popular Journal of General Literature. 43. March 1889.
^Kett, Henry (1814). The flowers of wit, or, A choice collection of bon mots, both antient and modern, with biographical and critical remarks, Volume 2. Lackington, Allen, and co. p. 67.
^"A Tempest in a Teapot". Hartford Herald: 8. July 10, 1907.
