drop a clanger
to make an embarrassing mistake
TRANSLATION
drop a clanger = ins Fettnäpfchen treten --- GOOGLE INDEX drop a clanger: approximately 100,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Mr Sarkozy DROPPED A CLANGER while delivering an address in Alsace - the region won back by France from Germany in World War I.
(BBC)
---
If anybody in the private sector DROPPED A CLANGER of this magnitude, losing their company £759,505, they would be fired.
(Shropshire Star newspaper)
(BBC)
---
If anybody in the private sector DROPPED A CLANGER of this magnitude, losing their company £759,505, they would be fired.
(Shropshire Star newspaper)
Did you
know?
drop a clanger
idiom
- to say something by accident that embarrasses or upsets someone
(Cambridge Idioms Dictionary)
---
One of the more popular theories about the origin of the expression "drop a clanger" has to do with the British pasty. The pasty is a type of meat pie usually filled with beef, onions and potatoes. The dough is shaped into a circle, filled with the ingredients and then folded into a semi-circle and baked.
In the 1800s, English miners in the Cornwall area often took pasties to work in tin lunch boxes which they sometimes heated with candles in order to warm up the pasty. Or so the legend goes. It's more likely that the miners simply ate them cold.
Because the pasty is closely associated with Cornwall, England, it is sometimes referred to as the Cornish pasty or "pastry." In fact, the traditional Cornish pasty has Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in Europe, similar to the Nürnberger Bratwurst and Münchner Weißwurst. As the theory goes, because pasties are rather heavy, they sound like a piece of metal when dropped on the ground, thus making a "clang" sound in a figurative sense.
So dropping something on the ground by accident in an embarrassing fashion would be like "dropping a clanger." Some people have gone even further to suggest that the real origin comes from the practice of the dropping the pasty-filled lunch boxes down the mineshaft to where the miners worked. This would obviously create a "clang" as well.
Alas, these explanations are more folk etymology than scientific explanation. The word clanger is simply British slang for a blunder and refers to a mistake whose effects seem to "clang," or ring out. The root of clanger - clang - stems from the Latin "clangere" and Greek "klange" meaning to resound or ring.
---
SYNONYMS
(noun, clanger)
blunder, blooper, error, faux pas, gaffe, a slip of the tongue, snafu
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Everyone drops a clanger now and then. After all, we're just human."
idiom
- to say something by accident that embarrasses or upsets someone
(Cambridge Idioms Dictionary)
---
One of the more popular theories about the origin of the expression "drop a clanger" has to do with the British pasty. The pasty is a type of meat pie usually filled with beef, onions and potatoes. The dough is shaped into a circle, filled with the ingredients and then folded into a semi-circle and baked.
In the 1800s, English miners in the Cornwall area often took pasties to work in tin lunch boxes which they sometimes heated with candles in order to warm up the pasty. Or so the legend goes. It's more likely that the miners simply ate them cold.
Because the pasty is closely associated with Cornwall, England, it is sometimes referred to as the Cornish pasty or "pastry." In fact, the traditional Cornish pasty has Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in Europe, similar to the Nürnberger Bratwurst and Münchner Weißwurst. As the theory goes, because pasties are rather heavy, they sound like a piece of metal when dropped on the ground, thus making a "clang" sound in a figurative sense.
So dropping something on the ground by accident in an embarrassing fashion would be like "dropping a clanger." Some people have gone even further to suggest that the real origin comes from the practice of the dropping the pasty-filled lunch boxes down the mineshaft to where the miners worked. This would obviously create a "clang" as well.
Alas, these explanations are more folk etymology than scientific explanation. The word clanger is simply British slang for a blunder and refers to a mistake whose effects seem to "clang," or ring out. The root of clanger - clang - stems from the Latin "clangere" and Greek "klange" meaning to resound or ring.
---
SYNONYMS
(noun, clanger)
blunder, blooper, error, faux pas, gaffe, a slip of the tongue, snafu
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Everyone drops a clanger now and then. After all, we're just human."
