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Teaching grandmother to suck eggs

English idiom

English idiom

Teaching (your) grandmother to suck eggs is a saying that refers to a person giving advice to another person in a subject with which the other person is already familiar (and probably more so than the person giving the advice).

Origins of the phrase

The origins of the phrase are not clear. The Oxford English Dictionary and others suggest that it comes from a translation in 1707, by J. Stevens, of Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo: "You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs". A record from 1859 implies common usage by that time. Most likely the meaning of the idiom derives from the fact that before the advent of modern dentistry (and modern dental prostheses) many elderly people (grandparents) had very bad teeth, or no teeth, so that the simplest way for them to consume protein was to poke a pinhole in the shell of a raw egg and suck out the contents; therefore, a grandmother was usually already a practiced expert on sucking eggs and did not need anyone to show her how to do it.

Notable early uses

  • The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Henry Fielding (1749):
  • Letter from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Leigh Hunt, 15 August 1819: "But what am I about? If my grandmother sucks eggs, was it I who taught her?"

References

References

  1. "The Free Dictionary".
  2. (12 October 2016). "Teaching grandmother to suck eggs: Meaning, Origin". Word Histories.
  3. "[http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/59878 egg, n.]", §4b, ''Oxford English Dictionary Online'', 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), accessed 27 July 2019.
  4. "Teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs". World Wide Words.
  5. "Teach your grandmother to suck an egg". The Book of Anecdotes, and Budget of Fun: Containing a Collection of Over One Thousand of the Most Laughable Sayings and Jokes of Celebrated Wits and Humorists.
  6. ''Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: the Curious Origin of Everyday Sayings and Fun Phrases'', by Andrew Thompson, Copyright 2017, Ulysses Press, Berkeley, California, {{ISBN. 978-1-61243-695-1. 978-1-61243-668-5
  7. Henry Fielding. "The History of Tom Jones a Foundling, Chapter 12".
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