What's Up With All The Egg Expressions?

[@NameExplain]

What's your favourite egg idiom? Also still happy to hear feedback on the new animation style, I finally slowed down the moving paper background, let me know what you think!

[@Caitlin7142]

Best egg idiom is trans person who doesn't know it yet

[@mingfanzhang8927]

😊😊

[@qirex3093]

I liked them, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch

[@Virsho]

@@Caitlin7142 I was gonna comment that

[@authormichellefranklin]

There are a few earlier sources for 'egg on your face', one from 1936 and one from 1941, both from anecdotes in newspapers, so the phrase was seemingly around before '64.

[@deborahhulme5137]

I’m sure this will be a cracking video in eggcited to watch it

[@rogink]

By Name Egg-splain?

[@StdDev99]

You mean "Eggspressions"?

[@pinkpolly88]

Came here to say that! What a missed opportunity 😕

[@pinkpolly88]

Came here to say this! What a missed opportunity 😕

[@richarddeese1087]

Eggcellent! tavi.

[@patrickb125]

Exactly what I was going to say. Why didn't he do that?

[@pebblebrookbooks4852]

Thx Eggsperts!!

[@ShawnRavenfire]

Another idiom worth mentioning is someone "killing the goose that lays the golden eggs," in obvious reference to Aesop's fable. Basically, the meaning is to ruin a good thing by pushing your luck or getting impatient.

[@Werevampiwolf]

To answer the chicken and egg question, it's the egg. Animals were laying eggs well before chickens were a thing.

[@benjaminprietop]

Eggspressions was right there!

[@stankendesokies]

A person who is trans, but has not yet discovered that themselves is called an egg. And when they discover that they are trans, their egg cracks.

[@Virsho]

I was gonna comment same lol :3

[@stankendesokies]

:3

[@Nonebiney]

:3

[@samwill7259]

"Universal" is a bit much, I can imagine an alien species who is VERY weirded out by the idea of eating eggs.

[@mattisvov]

"Egga" is still used in Swedish for encouraging someone to do something, in a straightforward fashion. Like, for example, yelling "do it, do it" repeatedly.

[@pebblebrookbooks4852]

So they are egging ppl on?

[@mattisvov]

@@pebblebrookbooks4852 Exactly.

[@herschelwright4663]

Eggcellent!🥚👍🏽

[@HalfEye79]

I know two more egg-related idioms with eggs. There may be more, but I don't remember them. - When something is important or really good in comparison you can say, that that is "the yellow of the egg" as the yolk. Or, the other way around, when something isn't really important or good, you can say, that it isn't the yellow of the egg, - When two people or things look very similar to each other, you can hardly differentiate between them as they are similar "like one egg to anther". Thats because the eggs from one animal look nearly identical to each other.

[@pyeitme508]

Egg-xcellent question 😂

[@jorgelotr3752]

In Spanish, the equivalent to "like apples and oranges" is "como un huevo a una castaña" (like an egg to a chestnut).

[@cookingforsingles]

There is another idiom - it is said when you have a score of 0, you have a (big fat) goose egg.

[@me0101001000]

My mind immediately went to the playful term in Mandarin, 小笨蛋. It means "little dumb egg", but it's used endearingly, often even flirtatiously.

[@marioricomeza2839]

As an American living in Taiwan. I never thought of 笨蛋 as having the word egg in it 😅I just always translated it directly as idiot

[@me0101001000]

@@marioricomeza2839 you're really thinking like a native speaker in that regard. You don't think about the literal meaning, just the practical meaning. Good for you!

[@al_fletcher]

Whereas telling someone to 滚蛋 (roll an egg) is basically the rudest way of ordering them to leave short of using actual profanities

[@fatini]

Oh, egg-xactly what I was thinking about! Thanks for the video

[@steampunkqueen2836]

I don't comment here normally, but this was an eggcellent video! 😆😆

[@takaela]

here in Central NY, USA, we say it "teach your grandmother to suck an egg"... seems to make more sense than "tell..." for "can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" i've always seen it used to indicate that a sacrifice has to be made, not just task to be completed... like collateral damage...

[@stevenglowacki8576]

Don't burn your bridges before they hatch in one basket.

[@rogerwitte]

I'm surprised you didn't retell Caxton's story of why he had to standardise the language - “And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.”

[@AbdAlHakamJunaid]

I am quite eggspressive of these eggspressions! Quite an eggscellent video NameEggsplain!

[@NBK1122]

A goose egg is also a raised bump injury to the body, caused by hitting your body on something hard (I once fell down, hit my head on a corner and got a goose egg) or something hitting your body (when the baseball hit the pitcher on his wrist, it left quite a goose egg).

[@TheLobsterCopter5000]

10:12 Wait, that's a phrase?! So that's why in The BFG during the whizzpopper song he says "as certain as eggses is eggses"

[@davidroddini1512]

Or as the French mafia would say, "You cant make le omelet without breaking legs".

[@robertwilloughby8050]

Sounds very Union Corse!😅

[@romad357]

Supposedly the omelet = breaking eggs came from Napoleon. He was asked about high casualties after a victorious battle and replied by using an omelet as an example of the victory and eggs as the casualties and coined the phrase.

[@CharlesStearman]

I've also heard of it being used (I think it was attributed to Chairman Mao of China) to justify the oppressive nature of communist regimes.

[@allanrichardson1468]

Before Mao, Lenin used the expression in Russian to mean that innocent people had to be killed to make the revolution.

[@netizen-studios]

The only idioms I knew of were: "putting all your eggs in one basket", "bad egg", "you can't make an omelet without cracking some eggs" and maybe "go suck an egg" and "walking on eggshells"

[@simonmeadows7961]

So much to take in there; my head is well and truly scrambled.

[@HalfEye79]

The word "egg" is very short. But the german name for this is even shorter: "Ei". That is so uncommon that I had to point it out.

[@matthewcodd2939]

Used to be the same in English too. Cocken-eye meant "an egg from a cockerell", i.e. ludicrous

[@AnnoyedSonic]

If someone is neither good natured or bad natured, does that just make them an egg?

[@kiga14]

Eggs is a word that is weird in English in that it's the kind of word that should come from Anglo-Saxon, but instead comes from Norse. Apparently both "eggys" (from Norse) and "eyren" (from Anglo-Saxon) coexisted for a long time, depending on the part of England you were in. The printer William Caxton as late as 1490 reports that this was still common in his time (in a foreward to his translation of Virgil's Aeneid): "...a mercer cam in to an hous and axed for mete, and specyally he axyd after eggys. And the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no frenche. And the marchant was angry for he also could speak no Frenche but wolde have egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde have eyren then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym wel" Basically, someone asked for eggs, and got the reply, "sorry, I don't speak French", and eventually someone else clarified that he meant "eyren", and then all became clear.

[@LarryRobinsonintothefog]

Never under estimate the power of breakfast.

[@scottmartin5990]

The omelet metaphor is generally used to mean you can't achieve significant goals without causing some incidental damage, usually to others.

[@rianantony]

This video would be perfect to send to the english learner friend groud if I had one

[@X-35173]

Another set of eggspressions come from the trans community. A person who is perceived as likely being trans but not having found that out gor themselves is referred to as an egg. More often used in hindsight like "I always smiled when people mistook me for a girl, I was such an egg." And often the moment you realize/accept that you're trans is the moment "your egg cracks". My understanding is that this started out being used for trans girls, because "when an egg hatches a chick comes out" but nowadays its used for trana people in general.

[@frasenp8411]

In Arabic slang بيض egg means bad or boring 😂 Also in Swedish slang you can say to someone "lägg ägg" for like come on/go away/stop it

[@nickimontie]

Egg eggspressions are eggcellent.

[@Illumisepoolist]

Eggcellant!

[@elinakangas571]

In Finnish language slang egg can refer to male genital too.

[@TheLobsterCopter5000]

I've never heard of the term public school being used to mean private school, and I've lived in the UK my whole life...though I've never really heard the term "public school" used in the UK in general tbh...but I've definitely heard private school.

[@AdamYJ]

The thing is, in the U.S., a public school is a school paid for by public funds like taxes. And a private school in the U.S. is one where the parents have to pay tuition. But in the UK, a “public school” is the one where tuition is charged. But one paid for by public funds is a “state school”.

[@wildstarfish3786]

3:50 wait why isn't it "tomato on my face" then

[@wendychavez5348]

Easier to say "egg" than "tomato."

[@theagrome4592]

In the transgender community “egg” is a name for a transgender person who hasn’t realized it yet. When someone realizes that they are trans we say “Their egg cracked”

[@KAZVorpal]

Eggs are one of the best sources of nutrients, along with dairy. Animal products turn inedible materials into the nutrients humans most need, and chicken eggs are the easiest form of animal products to produce. So, for most of history, people who would be struggling for complete nutrition depended upon eggs.

[@swedhamurugesh]

In Tamil there is a word " ku-mutai " which means bad egg, but it's used to call someone a Fool.

[@arthurdowney2846]

These comments have me cracking up

[@nelsonbennett917]

How is the whole English language based on eggs????😂

[@johnhannas3959]

The meaning for Egg for zreo come from Tennis. Love is from Le Eofe or the Egg.

[@DawnDavidson]

I always wondered! That makes sense 😊

[@CraigXJ87]

When you put 56-0 up, I immediately thought of Hull FC (if you know you know 😅)

[@carlv1379]

Eggxciting

[@bitantony8996]

My uncle used to climb trees to get to bird nests, made a pinhole in the eggs, sucked the contents out and left the shells in the nest

[@wendychavez5348]

Sad, but it happens. Poor birdies!

[@wendychavez5348]

Since I categorically refuse to eat anything related to seafood, we can agree that caviar is gross. Of course, it's a very elite dish, and mostly available to the wealthy or on cruiseships and such, though I've never accepted an invitation to try it. Because as Patrick and I agree, it's gross! Or, um, not.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

There is a bit of a real fondness for eggs in the Anglosphere, so I guess that helps? (But for me, an Egg Curry is not good!)

[@anthonybenci9035]

🥚

[@ShawnRavenfire]

Similar to "lay an egg," is when someone refers to nothing as a "goose egg," because of the egg being shaped like a zero. (I don't know why a goose egg, specifically, is used.) For example, someone might go fishing, but not catch any fish, and when asked about it, he may say he got a goose egg.

[@wendychavez5348]

I know when it's a physical injury, "I hit my head & came away with a goose egg," it's because goose eggs are so big. It seems "a big nothing" might be called "a goose egg" for the same reason.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

@@wendychavez5348 That makes sense.

[@poonoi1968]

I always take care put my eggs in my own boxershorts only

[@wariosimons]

0=goose egg

[@AbdAlHakamJunaid]

Hi

[@nfinitace]

Goose egg meaning 0.

[@mingfanzhang8927]

😂😂😂

[@the-scamp]

A hate egg's

[@JuliaPakbaz]

Your channel is an oasis for those who appreciate quality content. Continue to delight us with new videos!🐄🌽🥐

[@cobinasaur]

Eggspressions (Drum emoji drum emoji cymbal emoji)