Idioms About Tea

By
Simon Horobin, read by Mignon Fogarty,
Grammar Girl
February 18, 2016
Page 1 of 2

Tea was first imported into Britain early in the seventeenth century, becoming very
popular by the 1650s. The London diarist Samuel Pepys drank his first cup in 1660, as
recorded in his famous diary: I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I had
never drunk before. The word tea derives ultimately from the Mandarin Chinese
word ch, via the Min dialect form te. The Mandarin word is also the origin of the
informal word char, heard today in phrases like a nice cup of char. The Chinese origin
of the plant is remembered in the idiom not for all the tea in China, meaning certainly
not, not at any price, which originated in Australian slang of the 1890s.
By the eighteenth century, tea had become a symbol of fashionable society and a
staple of the coffee house culture. Samuel Johnson was a self-confessed hardened
and shameless tea-drinkerwhose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea
amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the
morning. As tea-drinking developed into an elaborate social ritual, so did the
associated paraphernalia. From the eighteenth century we find references to teaspoons, tea-boxes, tea-tongs, tea-kitchens (similar
to
a
modern tea-urn), teacaddies (from catty, a unit of weight, ultimately derived from Malay kati); sets
comprising cups, saucers, tea-pots, and other essentials were known as tea-equipage,
or rather more prosaically as tea-things, or tea-services (as they still are today). The
trade in growing, selling, and administering tea created a need for tea-growers, teasifters, andtea-ladies (nowadays associated with a tea-trolley and tea-urn); the
grandest ceremonies were overseen by a tea-hostess or tea master to ensure proper
etiquette was observed.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/idioms-abouttea#sthash.9ysGJdH3.dpuf

Users and Dealers

The large sums of money involved in the importing of this luxury commodity prompted
efforts to regulate the trade, resulting in tea-tax, tea-duty, and tea-broker. The Boston
Tea Party of 1773, when British tea was offloaded from ships into Boston harbour in
protest at taxation, is the inspiration behind the name of the US Republican Tea Party
movement; although some commentators have interpreted this as a backronym (an
unhistorical explanation of a words origin) for Taxed Enough Already. Historical
terms like tea-user and tea-dealer resemble the lexicon of todays illicit drug trade,
while in modern US slang a tea-head refers to someone who regularly smokes
marijuana and a tea-pad to a drugs den.
The drinking of tea became such an established feature of English social life that we
find references to tea-breakfasts, tea-soires, tea-picnics, tea-visits, tea-dinners, and
even tea-fights (a slang term for a tea-party rather than a bun-fight). A great
frequenter of such events, assumed to be acting from disreputable motives, was
known as a tea-hound. The light refreshment taken in the afternoon is still known as
tea, although in some parts (particularly in Northern England) this is now used to refer
to the evening meal. But how many households retain the tea-bell, used to summon
the family to assemble at the appointed hour? A love of tea is so ingrained in British
life that the phrase cup of tea has come to stand for anything viewed positively. In the
1930s, what interested someone was termed their tea; today we are more likely to
express our dislike for something by saying: its not my cup of tea. When someone is
distressed or bereaved, we console them with tea and sympathy, a phrase taken from
the title of a 1950s film.

More Tea, Vicar?

The dangers of excessive tea-drinking are apparent from tea-sot (sot is an archaic
word for a drunken fool) and tea-drunkard: one who habitually drinks tea to such
excess as to suffer from its toxic effects. To be described as tea-faced implied a
sallow or effeminate countenance like one addicted to tea-drinking. Overconsumption of tea can also be a source of flatulence, as suggested by the origins of
the expression More tea, vicar? used to cover the embarrassment prompted by
some social faux pas. This phrase is supposed to originate in an effort to fill an
awkward silence caused by a vicar breaking wind at a tea-party: More tea, vicar? the
genteel hostess asked in a deft attempt to save the clergymans blushes. But the vicar
unversed in the niceties of social etiquetteresponded bluntly: No thank you, it
makes me fart.
A version of this blog post originally appeared on the OxfordWords blog.
Simon Horobin is Professor of English at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen
College. He is the author of Does Spelling Matter? and writes a blog at Spelling Trouble. He is on
Twitter @SCPHorobin.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/idioms-about-tea?
page=1#sthash.IxRLJX6w.dpuf