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Vermont Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary
Coals to Newcastle
Hi,
"Your shoe-store man's come," said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on his tongue, "with a stock of goods big enough to supply the continent as far down as Tierra del Fuego... Keogh loved to take his mirth easily.
"Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!" gasped Keogh, in ecstasy. "Talk about coals to Newcastle! Why didn't he take a ship-load of palm-leaf fans to Spitzenbergen while he was about it? Saw the old codger on the beach. You ought to have been there when he put on his specs and squinted at the five hundred or so barefooted citizens standing around."
Who talk about coals to Newcastle and palm-leaf fans to Spitzenbergen? Keogh ironically says that or he just speak what he heard on the beach? What you think?
Thanx
"Your shoe-store man's come," said Keogh, rolling the sweet morsel on his tongue, "with a stock of goods big enough to supply the continent as far down as Tierra del Fuego... Keogh loved to take his mirth easily.
"Four-thousand-dollar stock of goods!" gasped Keogh, in ecstasy. "Talk about coals to Newcastle! Why didn't he take a ship-load of palm-leaf fans to Spitzenbergen while he was about it? Saw the old codger on the beach. You ought to have been there when he put on his specs and squinted at the five hundred or so barefooted citizens standing around."
Who talk about coals to Newcastle and palm-leaf fans to Spitzenbergen? Keogh ironically says that or he just speak what he heard on the beach? What you think?
Thanx
Top answer
Carrying coals to Newcastle is a well-known idiom for doing something completely superfluous, for taking things where they are not needed. ) Taking palm-leaf fans to Spitzbergen is, I think, coined here in this passage, and has a similar meaning, but for a different reason: Spitzenbergen is in Lapland, which is very cold, so there is no need of tropical fans. Both phrases here stress that the large stock of shoes is not needed in a country where all the natives go barefoot.
- Carrying coals to Newcastle is a well-known idiom for doing something completely superfluous, for taking things where they are not needed.
- ) Taking palm-leaf fans to Spitzbergen is, I think, coined here in this passage, and has a similar meaning, but for a different reason: Spitzenbergen is in Lapland, which is very cold, so there is no need of tropical fans.
- Both phrases here stress that the large stock of shoes is not needed in a country where all the natives go barefoot.
- )
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3 Answers
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Carrying coals to Newcastle is a well-known idiom for doing something completely superfluous, for taking things where they are not needed. (Newcastle is a famous coal-mining area of England-- so there is already plenty of coal there.)
Taking palm-leaf fans to Spitzbergen is, I think, coined here in this passage, and has a similar meaning, but for a different reason: Spi
Taking palm-leaf fans to Spitzbergen is, I think, coined here in this passage, and has a similar meaning, but for a different reason: Spi
00
Mister Micawber explains it well.
But what book is this passage from? And what year was it published?
I'm interested in discovering when Spitzenbergen stood for "a really, really cold place" in the popular imagination.
Please let me know!
Best regards
But what book is this passage from? And what year was it published?
I'm interested in discovering when Spitzenbergen stood for "a really, really cold place" in the popular imagination.
Please let me know!
Best regards
00
Hi,
the world’s southernmost township (Tierra Del Fuego) to its northernmost (Spitzbergen).
Clive
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