Small Beer:
I've just had an inquiry from an editor asking what I meant by the expression "small beer" and asking if it was a common expression and whether others would know what I was referring to. As in the following sentence:
When the questions of war and peace were on the table in ways that involved directly the world’s great powers, then the NGOs and global civil society seemed small beer indeed.
Does this use of "small beer" seem too obscure? My understanding is that the expression is British and dates back to at least the 18th century in the meaning of persons or matters of no account of little consequence. At least, that's how I've always used it. Am I right and even if I am, is the phrase nowadays overly obscure?
Skullsplitter, on the other hand, is not small beer.
Seems equivalent to "small potatoes". Perhaps the puritans changed the phrase here in the states.
IAGO
She that was ever fair and never proud,
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'
She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
See suitors following and not look behind,
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--
DESDEMONA
To do what?
IAGO
To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
DESDEMONA
O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn
of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband.
By the way, I once wrote a paper on the ineffectiveness of English county militias in the decades after 1689, and noted in it the fact that when the Jacobite army crossed into northwest England in 1745, its code word for the English militia was "small beer."
I haven't heard the term "small potatoes" in a long time.
Common enough in /The Economist/.
"Small beer" may be colloquial, but that may be an additional reason -- apart from its clear and pungent expression of an idea -- to use it in legal writing, which needs all the enlivening it can get.
Can academic writing ever be too obscure? Entire English departments have received tenure based on the importation of pointlessly obscure terms from French philosophy into the study of literature.
I've never come across 'small beans' until here, though.
I have heard 'small beer' used as a synonym of 'near beer' and 'baby beer'.
I'd consider 'small beer' to be perfectly ordinary vocabulary.
But that is exactly how "small beer" is meant, in its metaphorical use (as opposed to its descriptive use regarding an actual beverage). See the quote, above, from Othello, and many other examples.
I do find an editor that doesn't know the phrase a bit problematic, however.
Smith v. Dep't of Agriculture, 630 F.2d 1081, 1088 (5th Cir. 1980)(Randall, J., dissenting). This in turn was a play on the district judge's own remarks at the close of the evidentiary hearing:
Id. at 1087 n.1.
This is nonsense! One cannot "enliven" the language by using an obscure, outdated Britishism that more than half the readers will not understand. It's simple enough metaphor, but there are plenty similar ones to choose from without putting on a wig and a Royal accent.
To answer X, I think "small beer" is obscure; I've never heard it. And I think using it is a bad idea and bad style, even if the reader can "figure it out."
In another place, they called the same constallation "the plow" and others "Cain" while Ursa Major would have been "Abel". Genesis (as in the bible) is actually Latin for "Constellation in which the sun rises at the time of birth." Gotta love historic reconstruction.
But I would also note that I only know the meaning of the phrase because of my greater-than-average experience with Shakespeare. I'd suggest substituting the phrase "weak tea" for less obscure version of the same phrase, but only if you're worried about your meaning being lost.
"I tried to question the debtor about whether she listed a dish worth $2.00 - however the bankruptcy trustee abruptly cut off my questioning and chastised me for wasting her time on small beer."
P.S. perhaps this was too long an explanation - but I guess I went for the belt and suspenders approach.
Ezra Pound used it in the first stanza of Villonaud for This Yule:
Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,--
ALL
God save your majesty!
CADE
I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.
DICK
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
CADE
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since.
I see you are OK with responses that answer X and spout stupid crap that the commenter thinks makes them sound somewhat smart.
Sk
I found only one case using the term "small potatoes": Wolfe v. Shellist, 2001 WL 1587348 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001) That usage was metaphorical.
I found 10 cases using the term "small beer," but they all used it to refer to a beverage. I saw no metaphorical use.
Tracy Johnson, I actually sort of suspect "beans" was a deliberate modification, to make the phrase more appropriate around younger users. Given that I grew up among baptists, that'd be my guess, anyway.
An educated reader is likely to have come across the phrase and understand you. I assume that work on international policy isn't being written for the provincial set.
More importantly, lovely language is an end in and of itself.
Well aadvark, it all depends, doesn't it? You've apparently never encountered the expression, so it is obscure and outdated -- and probably foreign (though one can find almost as many American instances of its use in print as there are British). But from the evidence above, to many it is a well-known, if not exactly common, turn of phrase.
I would be reluctant to think that just because I haven't heard an expression before, or haven't read enough to encounter it, that its use is inadvisable. How would I broaden my understanding of the language, or the world? More to the point, how would you?
By the way, I don't think an expression deriving from the brewery would have upper class origins, or require that one put on an aristocratic accent, which is what I assume you mean by the term -- obscure? outdated? British? made up? -- "Royal accent."
Outdated? When was the last time you heard of anyone talking about actual small beer or, worse yet, serving it? If it's not in use and it was in the past, it is outdated. If I wanted to make a stronger statement, I would have said "archaic". But, since it's still occasionally in use, outdated is perfectly appropriate. "Archaic" implies that it can only be found in old texts (where old can range form 20 to 600 years or more), such as Shakespeare.
And look carefully at what I wrote. It's quite obvious that 1) a large number of readers would not understand the reference or would have to interpret it on the fly because they never heard of it, 2) even among those who commented that they are familiar with the expression here many suggested that they probably got it from reading British novels. That seems to suggest that "Britishism" is a perfectly reasonable way to describe it. I did not say "British" and I did not say "made up". Please, stop arguing with a straw man!
As for the Royal accent, it was meant in jest--perhaps sarcasm escapes you, I don't know. I am thinking of the likes of William F. Buckley who went to great length to sound intellectual by faking a British accent. For someone who wants to sound educated, putting on a British accent while using blue-collar idioms would be perfectly fitting.
The point of the editorial correction was clarity. I agree with the comment that it should be alarming if the editor have not heard of the expression at all or was unable to understand the point. But the correction is justified by the expression itself, not by editorial ignorance. As an editor, I like would have recommended avoiding it--precisely on the grounds I stated. And I edit nonfiction--not law reviews--for a living.
from: http://www.anchorbrewing.com/beers/smallbeer.htm
I do remember my father using this expression when I was a child (long time ago) and everyone knew what it meant. “Small potatoes” was the other common term at the time. I do seem to remember it, small beer, being used by my Scottish relatives referring to the beer that they had instead of water. In many of the cities the water was not very good and so they drank that instead, even the small children.
So I did a search on Google News.
I got 60 results using "small beer" in this sense (i.e., not referencing a "small beer garden," or some such).
Most of them were British, Aussie, or Kiwi, including the London Times and the Telegraph. However, I also got hits in the Louisville Courier Journal. the Chicago Journal, and Mother Jones ("Have our politics gotten so nasty that calling the president a liar before congress is just so much small beer?").
So I say it's in common usage and you need a better editor.
P.S. Apparently there is also a published named Small Beer Press.
publishedpublisherBut then I like playing with language. [i]De gustibus non disputandem est.[/i]
Aardvark, kindly hold the exclamation points; they add neither information nor clarity. As an editor you should know that.
I think your contention that the expresssion "small beer" is obscure is factually incorrect, and evidence to back that up keeps arriving in this thread every few minutes.
I don't claim you said "made up." I said "made up" -- meaning that your term "Royal accent" is one that you made up. There are U and non-U accents in Britain, as well as regional accents, but the royals don't have their own.
Nor did Buckley "fake" a "British [you mean English] accent" -- though he did attend school there as a boy. He had the sort of mid- or trans-Atlantic accent that many privately or prep school educated Americans -- think FDR, or George Plimpton -- had in the 20th century.
Excising every colorful expression on the grounds that some person, not well read, will fail to understand it is not editing, but a kind of bowdlerizing, and leads to a narrowing and dumbing down of the language. Perhaps this is why written English from 100 years ago is so often more vivid, direct and particular, and less abstact, pompous and dull than contemporary English.
Entire English departments have received tenure based on the importation of pointlessly obscure terms from French philosophy into the study of literature.
Possibly not the best way to recommend usage of an unusual term. :-)
If you want to plumb the depths of editorial wisdom, here's an example: an editor recently circled the term 'sinecure' in a piece of mine and asked if I had meant 'sine qua non.'
Bruce, directly involved sounds better and more natural -- unless one of the great powers is Germany.
"On the table" is almost as colloquial as "small beer."
There are also rhotic and non-rhotic accents, but it's not relevant to what I said--see the point about sarcasm above.
You are so right--it's not a fake accent. It is a faux accent. But "trans-Atlantic"? Whatever do you mean?
This is blatant revisionism, but it's not surprising--every generation laments the moral, intellectual and verbal decline in their young. Better still, they hold those who preceded them in highest esteem--even though, in their youth, they mocked them as stilted and obsolete.
Language evolves over time and it no more "vivid, direct" or "less abstract, pompous and dull" a hundred years ago than it is today. There were writers with good skills back then and there are now--the difference might well be in what we may accept for passable language in the writing professions today
compared to what the public would have held in high regard then. But there are two reasons for such perceptions--the fact that we have many more slots to fill in professions that involve a significant writing component (such as print journalists and pundits) and the natural long-term filter that has not eliminated the bulk of the junk that we see every day. There was plenty of awful writing at the turn of the XIXth century, but most of it did not survive for obvious reasons. In a hundred years, the next generation of McCourts will whining incessantly about the degeneration of the written language of their grandparents--no doubt a direct consequence of the trend that we observe today.
And ChrisTS has already taken care of the other bit:
I'm fairly sure David McCourt had tongue firmly in cheek with the remark about English professors and French philosophy. I was just picking up on his joke.
I have a tendency to split infinitives, though I try to restrain myself to occasions on which not splitting produces semantically odd implications. 'Involved directly' is both 'correct' and, to my ear, comfortable.
I think we can assume that the 'sound' question is relatively subjective. I see your reading, and this may be one of those cases which I referred to as making semantic trouble. I'm not persuaded, as I do not see how the adverb could be modifying the noun phrase.
AFAIK from my years in teaching, 'splitting an infinitive' does not require the use of an infinitive as such (to involve). It just means inserting the adverb between the noun and the verb in any case (it directly involves).
As for the Separist Puritans which are better known as Pilgrims, "The Puritans loaded more beer than water onto the Mayflower before they cast off for the New World." according to Royce, James E. Alcohol Problems: A Comprehensive Survey. New York: Free Press, 1981, 38
I have no doubt that McCourt had his tongue planted firmly between the cheeks at all times.
In case you did not notice, I take neither McCourt nor the entire thread as seriously as he does.
One would have thought "putting on a wig and a Royal accent" made that obvious.
"McCourt" here. Gee, then why do you sound so angry, Mr. vark? From your first words here -- "This is nonsense!" -- you sound like you woke up on the wrong side of the thread. Relax, stop scaring yourself by talking about "the next generation of McCourts," and perhaps you'll be able to resist accusing someone who disagrees with you of having a "tongue planted firmly between the cheeks." Dirty talk beats conceding that perhaps "small beer" is not so obscure, I suppose.
Well, good for you. I am not angry in the slightest. Next time read what I write, not what you think I should not have written.
Although I think this was intended as a joke, it does reveal how the phrase can be misconstrued. But that isn't an excuse for not using it.
I never heard it used although I hear small potatoes regularly. so much for my [smal] part of New England, i.e. Rhode Island. Having experience the service of beer in Germany by "ein mass", a liter glass, I imagined that "small beer" was relatively literal terminology, albeit the context gave it meaning. Personally I like writing that stretches my vocabulary, rather than takes the LCD approach.
More to the point, Random House and the American Heritage Dictionary both have definitions for "small beer" as a compound noun. To me that settles it, although I think the definitions are kind of lazy, e.g., "synonym for small potatoes".
I think the whole point of the different phrase is a slightly different meaning, albeit oft conflated. My stab at it (no reference intended to Eugene's thread on swords for self defense): useful in context but not the force majeure (which, incidently is not listed as a compound noun in the dictionaries that list "small beer", go figure).
After all, if small beer kept diarrhea at bay throughout medieval times, it is hard to think of it as small potatoes.
Maybe the bard didn't have digestive problems as he loved to use the reference derisively. Many citations already, but must revisit the use by his proto-Jacobin, Jack Cade, declaring in what is surely a parody of The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent (and quoted above by AK MIKE):
Seems Shakespeare was making a farce of Cade's revolution and thus his reference to its targets as all the lawyers is ambiguous -- as much an implict criticism of anti-intellectualism as an explict criticism of attorneys.
Burke would later be similarly conflicted in describing their ranks:
Indeed he might have said the small beer of attorneys.
Guilty as charged and lovin' it.
Brian
This is sarcasm, aardvark? Calling someone "it'? "Tongue between the cheeks"? This is simple abuse, sans wit, sans class, sans all. Editor, edit thyself.
I'd love to stay and chat with you, aardvark, but I've had my fill of small beer.
About UK vs. US usage: how about George Washington's recipe "To Make Small Beer" in the NY Public Library.
Time for vodka, for me.
The term does not strike me as archaic or foreign or otherwise inadvisable. By all means, use it.
The editor in question should learn to use the OED.
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