Re: Coals
to Newcastle
Posted by TheFallen on May 17,
2002 In Reply to: Re: Coals to Newcastle
posted by ESC on May 17, 2002
: : : How to form a sentence with
the idiom " carry coals to Newcastle " ? ( "Carry coals to Newcastle " = to supply
something which is unnecessary )
: : "Taking food to my grandmother's house
would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. She always has a big meal ready when
her family visits."
: TO CARRY COALS TO NEWCASTLE - "The current American equivalent
is 'to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos.' The idea is of doing something that
is the height of superfluity. In explanation, Newcastle - or Newcastle upon Tyne,
to use the official name of the ancient English city - lies in the center of the
great coal-mining region of England.The saying was recorded by Heywood in 1602;
as he labeled it common even then, it may well go back a century or two earlier.
Similar sayings occur in all languages." From "2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings
& Expressions from White Elephants to a Song and Dance" by Charles Earle Funk
(Galahad Book, New York, 1993).
A little research quickly dredges up some other
great idioms for redundant and unnecessary action, including teaching your grandmother
to suck eggs, carrying owls to Athens, teaching fish to swim, killing the slain,
buttering your bread on both sides, putting butter on bacon and carrying water
to the river. Not to be outdone, Shakespeare apparently got in on the act and
gave us "to gild refined gold", "to paint the lily" and "to throw a perfume on
the violet". Odd, that... I always thought the expression was "to gild the lily"...
or am I thinking of something else?
- Re: Paint the
lily R. Berg 05/17/02 ( 4)
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