I thought it would be fun to look up clichés about food and of course The Dictionary of Clichés contains way too many to fit in one blog post. I decided to narrow it down to fruit sayings. Look out for more food clichés in the weeks to come!
An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
“A proverbial preventative remedy.”
The meaning of this proverb is quite straightforward: eating fruit promotes good health! The Dictionary of Clichés says that it appears in John Ray’s A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), but when I searched the text I could not find it (“apple” appears in six other proverbs). Phrase Finder says that a similar proverb is found in the February 1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine: “A Pembrokeshire proverb. Eat an apple on going to bed, And you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.” The saying as we know it now appears in Elizabeth Wright’s Rustic Speech and Folk-lore (1913): “Ait a happle avore gwain to bed, An’ you’ll make the doctor beg his bread; or as the more popular version runs: An apple a day Keeps the doctor away.”
Like Comparing Apples and Oranges
“Comparing two unlike objects or issues.”
An earlier saying (from 1500s) with the same meaning was “the difference between chalk and cheese.” “As like as an apple to an oyster” is found in A Collection of English Proverbs, referenced above. When the phrase changed from “oysters” to “oranges” is difficult to ascertain (discussion found here). Interestingly, similar sayings are found in other languages, often contrasting apples and pears, but also potatoes and sweet potatoes, cabbages and carrots, and (in Serbian) grandmothers and toads!
Apple of One’s Eye
“A cherished person or thing.”
This saying is based on “the ancient concept that the pupil was a solid, apple-shaped body, and, being essential to sight, was precious” (The Dictionary of Clichés). Phrase Finder lists several texts that include the phrase, beginning with an Old English work:
- Gregory’s Pastoral Care (AD 885), attributed to King Aelfred (the Great) of Wessex
- Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600)
- The King James Version of the Bible (1611): Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8, Proverbs 7:2, Lamentations 2:18, Zechariah 2:8
- Sir Walter Scott’s novel Old Mortality (1816)
Apple Pie Order
“Very neat.”
The origin of this phrase is uncertain. Suggestions include apple pies with slices neatly arranged by New England housewives or a corruption of the French phrase nappes pliées (“folded linen”). The phrase “is recorded first in English in Sir Thomas Pasley’s Private Sea Journals, 1780: ‘Their Persons Clean and in apple-Pie order on Sundays'” (Phrase Finder).
Brown as a Berry
“The color brown; today, suntanned.”
This simile (“as broune as is a berye”) is found twice in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387), in the Prologue and “The Coke’s Tale.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a conclusive explanation of why a berry would be called brown (this explanation is interesting).
Sour Grapes
“Disparaging what one cannot but would like to have.”
This phrase comes directly from the Aesop’s fable about a fox who disdains the grapes he is unable to reach. According to Phrase Finder it is not certain when “sour grapes” entered the English language.
Top Banana
“The main leader of an organization or undertaking, the chief.”
This term (which I can’t say I’m familiar with) originated in vaudeville in the 1920s and was used for the starring comedian; the supporting comedian (usually the straight man) was referred to as second banana. According to Grammarist these terms came from a skit wherein three comedians attempt to share two bananas. Top Banana was a Broadway play (1951) and then a movie (1954), both starring Phil Silvers.