hot potato
a dangerous topic to talk about
TRANSLATION
hot potato = Heißes Eisen --- GOOGLE INDEX 691,000 hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
"Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey revealed that the timing over Trident will will turn the issue into a HOT POTATO for the Labour Party."
BBC News
BBC News
Did you
know?
hot potato
idiom
- an issue or question about which people have different opinions and feel very strongly
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
As an expression "hot potato" was recorded in the mid-1800s to refer to a delicate or awkward matter.
Thanks to the tough skin, a cooked potato remains hot for quite some time. So when people cooked potatoes in an oven or near a fire, anyone who picked up the vegetables realized that they were, for a few minutes anyway, literally too hot to handle.
Therefore, a similar expression, "drop (something) like a hot potato", arose about the same time. It means to abandon something quickly. You can also idiomatically drop a hot brick or a hot cake.
There is a children's game called "hot potato", too. The players sit in a circle, and a small ball is thrown as quickly as possible from one person to the next.
When someone outside of the circle calls out "hot potato", the person who happens to be holding the ball has to leave the circle. The last person remaining wins the game.
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SYNONYMS
debate, scandal, controversy, delicate issue, sensitive topic
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"At the next meeting, don't mention the upcoming acquisition. It's a hot potato!"
idiom
- an issue or question about which people have different opinions and feel very strongly
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
As an expression "hot potato" was recorded in the mid-1800s to refer to a delicate or awkward matter.
Thanks to the tough skin, a cooked potato remains hot for quite some time. So when people cooked potatoes in an oven or near a fire, anyone who picked up the vegetables realized that they were, for a few minutes anyway, literally too hot to handle.
Therefore, a similar expression, "drop (something) like a hot potato", arose about the same time. It means to abandon something quickly. You can also idiomatically drop a hot brick or a hot cake.
There is a children's game called "hot potato", too. The players sit in a circle, and a small ball is thrown as quickly as possible from one person to the next.
When someone outside of the circle calls out "hot potato", the person who happens to be holding the ball has to leave the circle. The last person remaining wins the game.
---
SYNONYMS
debate, scandal, controversy, delicate issue, sensitive topic
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"At the next meeting, don't mention the upcoming acquisition. It's a hot potato!"
