Swiss picnic

Question

"It's no Swiss picnic for me, either."What does the words "Swiss picnic" means?Thanks,Ryo

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

ryotaro--What does the words "Swiss picnic" means?--

What do the words "Swiss picnic" mean?

Swiss National Day, est. 1891, is celebrated August 1st with a variety of outdoor activities. One of the most popular activies is eating, including picnics. This festive holiday is sometimes likened to the USA's Independence Day celebration, July 4th. We find no specific connotation/definition for the term "Swiss Picnic" apart from the general allusion above. Several Swiss-American organizations hold annual picnics. According the information uploaded to the Internet, these are festive celebrations welcoming family, friends and community. Perhaps this was the allusion Larry David meant in his quote from Curb Your Enthusiasm: "It's no Swiss Picnic for me, either."

From http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpicnics.html#swisspicnic

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Apparently, "a Swiss picnic" means a pleasant experience.

"Compared with what we had all been through in the recent past, a blackout was a Swiss picnic." (A blackout is usually a terrible experience, but this time it was a pleasant experience when compared with our past experiences.)

Khoff · Answer

I've heard "it's no picnic" (to indicate that something is not as easy or pleasant as one might think), but I've never heard "Swiss picnic" before.

Anonymous · Answer

So far as I can tell, the term “Swiss picnic” dates all the way back to the post-hippie days of the comedy troupe, The Firesign Theater. The first time I heard it was on their album, “Everything You Know Is Wrong”, a riff on UFO cultists, in which an alien visitor was taken, in the 1890’s, to a Swiss Picnic, where the unfortunate creature “choked to death on a piece of cheese”.

Since then, the term has come to refer to (if something that obscure can having a widely understood meaning) any sort of affair or gathering which should be pleasant, but has instead resulted in an unpleasant or embarrassing outcome.

As in, “This year’s office party sure was no Swiss picnic.” Or, as in Larry David’s case, “Yeah, it was no Swiss Picnic for me, either.” It’s one of those odd, viral usages that marks the user as having some connection to 1970’s humor. I only came across this page because I had recently referred to a meeting as “no Swiss Picnic”, and I got to wondering why I’d said that. It’s been a family phrase for a long time, but just how it got started? No idea. Except that I do own a few of my dad’s old Firesign Theater albums.

Khoff · Answer

Thanks for that interesting bit of etymology!

Anonymous · Answer

Its likely the character was referring to being Switzerland during the second world war.

A "Swiss picnic" is then most probably an allusion to being a neutral party to a situation.

Swiss picnic

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