MDDM Ch. 19 Good (and Bad) Eggs

[jbor]

198.5 "Good Eggs far outnumber Bad Hats"

>From a Dictionary of Idioms:

egg: to be a good/bad egg

to be an untrustworthy/dependable person

It is impossible to tell from simply looking at the shell whether an egg is
fresh or not. Once the egg is broken it may reveal an unpleasant surprise,
but a good egg will have been found to be entirely sound right through to
its very centre. So it is with people; the outward appearance will not
reveal the content of the character. This is only discovered when time is
taken to get to know a person better. Someone who is a "good egg" is known
to be dependable through and through. A "bad egg" is someone to avoid.

The first written reference is to a "bad egg". It makes it clear that it was
current in spoken English for some time before: "In the language of his
class, the Perfect Bird generally turns out to be 'a bad egg'." (Samuel A.
Hammett, _Captain Priest_, 1855) Also: "'A bad egg' . . . a fellow who has
not proved to be as good as his promise." (_The Athenaeum_, 1864)

"Good egg" did not come into use until the beginning of this (i.e. the 20th)
century, when it was probably coined amongst the students at Oxford.

The remarks about the freshness of eggs apply to another common expression,
"like the curate's egg - good in parts", which refers to something which is
mediocre but has its good points. The edition of _Punch_ published on Nov. 9
1895 carried a cartoon showing a timid curate eating a bad egg at the home
of his bishop and bravely assuring his host that "parts of it are
excellent". The simile is sometimes halved so that "good in parts" and "like
the curate's egg" are heard independently.

***

Other idioms to do with eggs derive from the 18th c. The phrase "as sure as
eggs is eggs" is apparently a corruption of the logic statement 'as sure as
x is x', and can be found in Oliver Goldsmith's _The Good Natur'd Man_
(1768), as well as in Dickens' _Pickwick Papers_.

The phrase "to teach one's grandmother to suck eggs" is first recorded in
John Stevens' translation of _Quevedo's Visions_ (1707), but most famously
appears in Swift's _A Polite Conversation_ of 1738: "Go, teach your grannam
to suck eggs."

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