A curate's egg

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Have you heard this expression before?

The English teacher at my school asked me to explain this to his class as when he googled it it said it was a British expression. So as I'm the only brit it fell to me to explain.

Have I lived under a rock for the last 50 years as I didn't have the foggiest. I asked DH when I got home and he knew it. But he's weird so that's not a fair test of how well known it is.

Do you know what it means? I wouldn't want this class of foreigners thinking we're all going round spouting stuff like this if you're all as clueless as I was.

Yes, I know this expression and use it frequently, along with 'The Labour Of Sisyphus', both of which cause puzzlement to my, much younger, work colleagues, along with describing someone as one whos 'wits have gone wool gathering', something wonky being 'jommetry' and 'paddling one's own canoe'.
Such a shame that these lovely old expressions are being lost to the mists of time

I have never heard that or the jam one
I am in the SE if that makes any difference

The context, in case anyone's interested was that the teacher was trying to explain the meaning of curator. Someone googled it and and started asking about what a curator's egg was. Teacher grabbed me as I walked past the door and said I could explain. I had no idea but having googled could only find curate's egg so am assuming they mixed up curator and curate. I'll share my newfound knowledge with them tomorrow.

it is a quaintly old fashioned expression to be teaching to a group of English language students.

next week: all fur coat and no knickers

I’ve read it in mid century novels. I have never heard it said and think it’s now almost out of use.

ah, okay. they randomly stumbled across the phrase.

Yes, a curate is a fairly junior cleric in the Church of England. The main priest or minister in charge in the parish would be called the vicar or sometimes the rector, and the curate would be the assistant, deputising in the vicar's absence. Most curates would be young, as they'd be expected to get their own parish after a few years. They still turn up in Agatha Christie novels. I have no idea if they are still a feature of the Anglican church.

next week: all fur coat and no knickers

Ah now I use that. Although when I said it recently the person I was taking to did say they hadn’t heard it in 2O years

@postcardpuffin unfortunately for your argument, what something means is determined by how people use it. I haven't done any kind of analytic corpus survey so it could be that the way I've most commonly seen the phrase used is not, in fact, the way it's most commonly used. But whether my experience is representative or not, the things that people use a word or phrase to mean are what those words or phrases mean, regardless of their origins. Sorry.

@SausageinaBun I think the same as you - in that 'good in parts' actually means that something is rotten or a complete shit show. It is used to try to say something nice about something that is actually bad through and through.

I thought 'jam tomorrow' was a very well known phrase, as it's so useful when looking at promises politicians make. Neither this nor curate's egg are regional sayings.

This is the Alice extract, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The expression originates from Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. .. In the book, the White Queen offers Alice "jam every other day" as an inducement to work for her:

"I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!" the Queen said. "Two pence a week, and jam every other day."
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire me – and I don't care for jam."
"It's very good jam," said the Queen.
"Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate."
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."
"It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know."
"I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing!"

Not melancholy, exactly - more of a politician's promise.

Was Punch like Private Eye? Hmm. Sort of. Or Private Eye's great great grandfather.

It didn't do the 'exposé' sort of stuff that PE does, but a more disguised satirical take on contemporary society and politics. Edwardian novels contain jokes about the stuffiness of Punch and lack of jokes in its cartoons.

I liked it - spent many a happy hour when I was 10 or so reading bound volumes of long-past issues - but I was a slightly unusual child.

In other idiom news, DH will say of something that it “grew like Topsy”, meaning it grew large really quickly, which annoys me, because it doesn’t mean that, it means something that just appeared - Topsy in Uncle Toms Cabin says nobody made her, she “just grew”.

I do know, but only because (like several other terms/expressions) I came across it here on MN and googled it.

My grandparents used it occasionally and explained its meaning "good in parts" and gave me examples but I haven't heard it used for a very long time.

Yes, very much so. It’s very normal for Anglican priests to undertake a curacy for a year or so after ordination before taking up their own parish.

It means something that is awful but you are trying to be polite about it.