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Eat humble pie
Eat humble pie








eat humble pie

What can be confusing is that an idiom could start off as hyperbole. Literally, this means that someone is putting a sweet icing on top of a cake with a spatula figuratively this means that something great was added to someone's already-fine life. American speakers have come to understand this phrase on two levels. For example, saying a new job is "icing on the cake" is really a metaphor, a comparison of two unlike things.

eat humble pie

The difficulty with idioms is that they are figurative language in their own right, but they have gained a meaning beyond themselves in colloquial language. The slogan "The best part of waking up is Folger's in your cup" is a definite exaggeration.

eat humble pie

Hyperbole in advertising has often earned it a negative connotation. Including the specific exaggeration makes the meaning clear. But saying “Mary’s house is so big that the entire population of the city can fit into it” really clarifies the situation. For instance, if you said someone had a really big house, that would be very different if the person was rich or poor. Could one man really plant all of the apple trees in an American region? They are also used to clarify a description, because people have such different frames of reference. Hyperbole is found in tall tales, like the stories of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. To spot the differences between hyperbole and idiom, it is important to fully understand exaggerations.










Eat humble pie