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"hot potato"

  • 01-04-2009 7:38pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,136 ✭✭✭


    Where that came from?


Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,008 ✭✭✭The Raven.


    Dictionary.com

    hot potato

    A problem so controversial and sensitive that it is risky to deal with. For example, Gun control is a political hot potato. This term, dating from the mid-1800s, alludes to the only slightly older expression drop like a hot potato, meaning "to abandon something or someone quickly" (lest one be burned). The idiom alludes to the fact that cooked potatoes retain considerable heat because they contain a lot of water.

    I don't know where the term originated, but this definition seems as good as any. That is how I have always understood it anyway.


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