Re: "a drop in the ocean"

Posted by ESC on August 03, 2001

In Reply to: Origin of "a drop in the ocean" posted by Ceslstee on August 03, 2001

: I need to know the origin of a drop in the ocean.. the one at this website says something about the bible(for a drop in the bucket), but I need the origin about a drop in the ocean.. could someone help me out quick?

Dickens.

DROP IN THE BUCKET - "Another biblical phrase, meaning very little compared with the whole. It is from Isa. 40:15: 'Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket, and are counted as small dust of the balance.'" From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

A DROP IN THE BUCKET (OR SEA, OR OCEAN) -- ".The metaphor first appeared in the English translation of the Bible by John Wycliff (1382) in Isaiah ix, 15: 'Lo! Jentiles as a drope of a boket, and as moment of a balaunce ben holden.' In the King James version the passage reads: 'Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance.' Charles Dickens gave impetus to the further alteration or expansion in 'A Christmas Carol' (1844). In the first conversation between Scrooge and the ghost of his deceased partner, Marley, the ghost says: 'The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.' And nowadays the 'drop' may be of any liquid into any proportionately great body." From "2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions from White Elephants to a Song Dance" by Charles Earle Funk (Galahad Book, New York, 1993).