Trees
have roots. Rivers have sources. So too, phrases. Just the other day,
reflecting on the before and continuing ‘after’ of the illegal,
unjustified and genocidal attacks carried out against Iran by the
world’s worst rogue state combo, USA-Israel, and of course the impending
war-ending peace accord or at least many of the drafts circulating
these days, the term ‘eat humble pie’ came to mind.
Why, though?
Well,
there was a ‘status,’ let’s say, before the two-idiot-circus of Trump
and Netanyahu launched attacks on Iran, in the midst of negotiations by
the way. Also, by the way, this was the second time within a year that
these jokers got their rocks off while talking. Now, more than three
months later, the deal that might be inked soon, essentially reverts to
that status quo apart from the unfreezing of Iranian assets, some
rebuilding-compensation and a pledge to talk about nuclear capabilities.
A defeat for the clowns, but not necessarily a victory for Iran, simply
on account of the massive damage inflicted on infrastructure and the
loss of thousands of lives.
One day the buffoons may be tried
for genocide and other crimes against humanity, but I wouldn’t bet on
it; not in a world where the big decision makers have each others’
backs.
All that is ‘aside,’ now. The moment ‘humble pie’ came to
mind, I wondered where it came from? Well, in my case, I’ve heard it
often enough to know what it means, but this was the first time I was
curious about its origins. And I couldn’t stop laughing.
Apparently,
it is sourced to a medieval dish called ‘umble pie.’ That’s so long ago
that the spell-checker doesn’t know of it. I typed the word and it was
auto-corrected to ‘humble.’ ‘Umble,’ ladies and gentlemen, was
originally, ‘numbles,’ and that was the Middle English word for deer
offal.
‘Offal,’ as we know, refers to the internal organs of a
butchered animal. Such parts are considered to be inedible, but that’s a
class thing which we will get to later on. That term comes from another
Middle English word, ‘offall,’ i.e., ‘that which falls off during the
butchering process.’
Anyway, ‘umble pie’ was considered cheap,
low-class food served to and consumed by servants and peasants. The rich
and the noble got the prime cuts. Class-relations are in a sense
butchering processes, and the butchered, metaphorically, have to make
do, typically, with the scraps, the fallen-offs, that which the butchers
considered ‘inedible’ simply because they weren’t ‘prime cuts.’
So
how did it bleed into ‘humble pie’? The phonetic shift, I learned, was
caused by the frequently dropped ‘h’ sound. There are lots of words
beginning with that letter but where the aspirate is unvoiced. It was a
clever shift, then, to add the ‘h’ to ‘umble.’ And so, to eat humble
pie, would mean that the high and mighty had to forgo the ribeye,
tenderloin, drip steak, t-bone etc., and make do with what the lower
classes could afford. In other words, internal organs and extremities
such as feet and tail. A come down, certainly, although there are
delicacies turned out by such body parts which, I am willing to wager,
were concocted by creative culinary artists of ‘the underclasses.’
The
idiom apparently was in currency by the early 19th century when the
phrase was linked to (unwished for) humility. Today, it refers to the
condition of being forced to admit or found to have erred or forced to
back down following boats. Eating one’s words; that’s another way to put
it.
Of course Donald Trump does that a lot. So often, in fact,
that his words have become a veritable staple. But this is no joke.
Donal Trump, agent and voice of Ugly America and the worst version of
Uncle Sam, stamped his feet, screamed his lungs out, mumbled precious
nothings, uttered falsehood that have added the term ‘Trumpism’ to the
dictum ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics,’ and is now gulping
down loads and loads of ‘inedible’ innards.
It is a pitiful
‘sight’ and an embarrassment to the good people of the United States of
America (and of course Israel) whose voices have been drowned by the
media-shouts of two maniacs. Then again, perhaps this ‘noise before
defeat’ is a sign of turn-around and good things to come.
Trump
and Netanyahu will not recognise defeat if it hits them between their
respective sets of eyes. ‘Where were you before and where are you now?’
Is a question they will not suffer to answer. They will take lower-order
meat cuts, cook them up, lavishly drown them in exotic spices, and
claim or at least believe, that they are consuming prime cuts.
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