Making a mountain out of a molehill
Today I?m going to delve into phrases or sayings that were quick to catch my attention and curiosity as a child mainly because of the jarring juxtaposition of images or ideas they incited in my young mind. These are some of the phrases, in fact, that started my lifelong interest in clich?s, colloquialisms and old sayings.
The first of these is a pretty common expression, but it really caused me some consternation the first time I heard it, and that phrase is: ?That?s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.?
Like many of these phrases, I couldn?t figure out why someone would say this. It didn?t make any sense at all to me as a little kid. Why the heck would anyone cut off their own nose? Why would somebody want to spite their face? And for that matter, how would slicing off your nose do that anyway?
Of course, after asking seeking the council of a few knowledgeable adults I soon found out it made perfect sense. It means doing injury to oneself in order to try and hurt someone else.
Now, on to the origin of the phrase. In my research, I found that one of the earliest recorded uses was in Grose?s ?Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,? published in 1796. In that instance the version mentioned was ?He cut off his nose to be revenged of his face.?
Glad I didn?t hear that one, or I?d have been really confused. Experts say the phrase, in one form or another, had been in use in everyday speech for some time even before that, so many feel it would be impossible to pin down the absolute origin of the phrase. Still, there is one speculation that that is pretty interesting in its own right.
Apparently ancient Egyptians had some odd ideas of how they would pass into the next life. As most people know, the really rich and powerful ones would make a great effort to take all their belongings with them, including living people in some cases.
Seems they also put a lot of store in having their images on their sepulchers and on monuments and statues around their tombs so the gods would know them in the afterlife. As a rather bizarre result of this, some subsequent Egyptian rulers would deface the statues by cutting off the nose of the statue/sepulcher in order to deny the dead passage into the afterlife because their face wouldn?t be recognized by the gods.
This may not be the origin, and it doesn?t really fit the concept, because it?s done by others rather than oneself, but some feel it could still be connected.
Along these lines are two phrases, almost interchangeable in their meaning, that depend on the contrasting imagery I mentioned earlier to get their message across. Those are: ?Making a mountain out of a molehill,? and, ?It?s a tempest in a teapot.?
Both of these phrases refer to the tendency to exaggerate the importance or seriousness of a problem.
According to some, making a mountain out of a molehill has a rather interesting literary origin, one of ?Aesop?s Fables? entitled ?A Mountain in Labor.? The fable tells of a mountain being greatly agitated making groans and noises bringing crowds of people to see what was the matter and as they were assembled watching and expecting some terrible calamity, out came a mouse. Moral: Don?t make much ado about nothing.?
The ?tempest in a teapot? has been traced back to 1857, but is probably older. In fact, some mention that Cicero, as far back as 400 B.C., referred to a contemporary who ?stirred up waves in a wine ladle,? which is obviously a very similar concept.
In any case, both phrases are still in common usage and probably still confusing curious literal minded boys like yours truly.
Charlie Johnson is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at newseditor@southernstandard.com.