"Teaching grandma to suck eggs" Does anyone know what this saying means, or where it comes from?
2007-08-08 07:50:39 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Quotations
DON'T TRY TO TEACH YOUR GRANDMA TO SUCK EGGS - I don't think anyone knows exactly how this phrase got started. On a farm, an egg-sucking dog (a dog that steals eggs and eats them) is bad. And I think that during one discussion of the phrase, it was said that maybe grandma didn't have teeth so she sucked soft boiled eggs. Anyway, here's what Charles Earle Funk says in "Hog on Ice" (Harper & Row, New York, 1948). "To teach one's grandmother to suck eggs - To offer needless assistance; to waste one's efforts upon futile matters; especially, to offer advice to an expert. This particular expression is well over two hundred years old; it is just a variation of an older theme that was absurd enough to appeal to the popular fancy. One of the earliest of these is given in Udall's translation of 'Apophthegmes (1542) from the works of Erasmus. It reads: 'A swyne to teach Minerua, was a prouerbe, for which we sai: Englyshe to teach our dame to spyne.'" That last bit was about an expression, don't try to teach a dame to spin.
2007-08-08 09:10:11 · answer #1 · answered by ♪ Pamela ♫ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It means, don't teach something to someone who knows more than you do. You will sound silly - like how you would trying to teach your grandma to suck eggs.
If you tried to teach an english major the alphabet, that would be an extreme example.
2007-08-08 07:54:05 · answer #2 · answered by misscarinne 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hehe like this saying.... its similar to Can't teach an Old Dog any new Tricks!!!
2007-08-08 08:09:27 · answer #3 · answered by Scott 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋