{"id":19675,"date":"2020-08-21T13:49:35","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19675"},"modified":"2020-08-21T13:49:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:49:37","slug":"elephants-and-molehills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19675","title":{"rendered":"Elephants and Molehills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you like to make a fuss about things, to make a big deal out of things, or to make a song and dance about things, you could be said to be <strong>making a mountain out of a molehill<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/yannic\/410164873\/in\/photolist-9E3sXb-9DZz56-2bZ7hLn-9D1k9K-fgvNoS-6AMSRF-fXSfeA-SkdGfC-8BHWuQ-xGKGAo-8JhnHA-nVggfU-7uCXEJ-5v1T4j-6uqwwj-M3K3G-5YoN3D-7yRbcR-2b51ivs-eMrKMp-6P4b7S-6P4aZq-afUmt-CfcJa-dreC8A-dheybx-qfrvkb-dsmamn-2aZm9Z-7zLTA3-dNtNUW-dNoegr-emmHtj-Kk3zYf-dNtPg5-gU7uUT-NGL3ZN-akvhgU-dNof7P-snjJYw-dNtPub-8AxdoH-27DrsLS-8AAhZ9-8AAi1N-8AxdmH-8AAhWA-8AxdiZ-8Axdra-8AAhKA\" title=\"DSC08542\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/157\/410164873_891e71bdc3_z.jpg\" alt=\"DSC08542\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This phrase first appeared in writing in 1548 in Nicholas Udall&#8217;s translation of <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/ParaphraseofErasmusVolume1\/page\/n1\/mode\/2up\"><em>The fir\u017ft tome or volume of the Paraphra\u017fe of Era\u017fmus vpon the newe te\u017ftamente<\/em><\/a> as &#8220;The Lacos could abide no length, the Sophistes of grece coulde through their copiousnes make an Elephaunt of a lye, and a mountayne of a molle hill&#8221;. It is based on the Latin proverb &#8220;elephantem ex musca facere&#8221; (to make an elephant from a fly). It is possible that Udall coined the phrase, or that someone else did so around that time  [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Make_a_mountain_out_of_a_molehill\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>mole<\/strong> (as in the animal) comes from the Middle English <em>mold(e)warp<\/em> (&#8220;earth-thrower&#8221;). This became <em>molle<\/em>, and later mole. In Old English a mole was a <em>wand<\/em>, which became <em>want<\/em>, and a molehill was a <em>wantitump<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In Dutch the equivalent of to make a mountain out of molehill is <strong>van een mug een olifant maken<\/strong> (&#8220;to make an elephant from a fly&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>Are there similar sayings in other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you like to make a fuss about things, to make a big deal out of things, or to make a song and dance about things, you could be said to be making a mountain out of a molehill. This phrase first appeared in writing in 1548 in Nicholas Udall&#8217;s translation of The fir\u017ft tome [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,107,10,33,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19675"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19684,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19675\/revisions\/19684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}