To think the expression 'like taking coals to Newcastle' isn't made up or posh

[cocoachannel]

DH and I were preparing to travel to my parents' house for Easter today, when DH suggested taking a bottle of wine for my Dad. I said we should get something else as it would 'be like taking coals to Newcastle'. (DPs have an impressive wine collection).

DH maintains that I have either made up the expression (despite showing him google results ), or it is something I know because 'I am posh' (which is a whole other debate in itself...).

Anyway, MN, please help me prove DH wrong

made up IMO

I have never heard that, you toff

I have heard it (and used it).

It is neither made up nor posh.

You are right

Only joking.
__

Carry coals to Newcastle

Meaning

To do something pointless and superfluous.

Origin

Newcastle Upon Tyne in England was the UK's first coal exporting port and has been well-known as a coal mining centre since the Middle Ages, although much diminished in that regard in recent years. 'Carrying coal to Newcastle' was an archetypally pointless activity - there being plenty there already. Other countries have similar phrases; in German it's 'taking owls to Athens' (the inhabitants of Athens already being thought to have sufficient wisdom). 'Selling snow to Eskimos' or 'selling sand to Arabs', which in many people's understanding also have the same meaning, are a little different. Those expressions refer to things that are difficult to achieve, i.e. requiring of superb sales skills, rather than being things that are pointless..

Despite the name of the city, Newcastle's castle keep is almost a thousand years old - having replaced an earlier castle in 1178. The association of the city with coal and the phrase itself are also old. In 1606, Thomas Heywood in 'If you know not me, you know no bodie: or, the troubles of Queene Elizabeth' wrote:

"As common as coales from Newcastle."

The explicit link with pointlessness came soon afterwards, in Thomas Fuller's The history of the worthies of England, 1661:

"To carry Coals to Newcastle, that is to do what was done before; or to busy one's self in a needless imployment."

Thank you everyone. Vindicated by MN. or rather

My grandparents used that expression. But we are posh

You win - it's neither 'posh' nor made up.

DP's Grandad ( neither invented nor in the least bit posh ) used to say " coals to bloody Newcastle " all the time when I tried to foist our excess gooseberries off on him ...

Not posh and not made up - means taking something somewhere that there is loads or doing something that someone already does

I'm a Geordie and didn't know it

It's neither. Have you really never heard that expression before?

xpost with lots of people who type quicker than I can

nope, i remember reading it in a book and being perplexed as i am foreign

It's a very widely-used expression!

it's widely used and very old.

It's the same sort of thing as saying someone "could sell snow to eskimos", which is something I recall hearing a lot when I was a kid.

it's a common expression used when you are taking something to somewhere that has lots of the thing... eg I take cheese to my friend in Holland.!! (they make tonnes of the stuff - but she likes blue cheese)

I've heard it before - I remember seeing it an O-level English paper when I was comparing O-levels to my GCSEs :o

actually, it's not the same thing at all cos it's not selling. Oh, I am laughing at myself here!

coals to newcastle is doing something pointless, selling snow to eskimos is about gift of the gab

what the FUCK am I on about?

I have heard it all my life and used it.It isnt posh and it isnt made up-loopy explains it perfectly.

I have heard it all my life too.

Not posh or made up!

I also grew up up there and have never heard it

It's a pretty common expression - I live there and people used to say that in Jesmond, sex is what the coal comes in :)

neither made up nor posh. You = right. DH = wrong

I'm in NI and I've heard it, I think my Mum says it sometimes.