Humble Pie
Eating Humble Pie
My friend told me a story about how her student needed some humble pie. There was a boy and a girl in her class. The girl was good at art, but poor in English. The boy was great in English, but not very artistic. My friend played Telestrations with that class. In Telestrations, students have to draw pictures and then guess what they are. I guess the boy likes to show off his English skills, so he was given a slice of humble pie when forced to draw.
Humble pie is figurative way to express humiliation. It is often expressed as if someone must eat this humiliation. Eating humble pie is often used in embarrassing situations, especially when the person is forced to apologize.
Example: She said that no one could beat her in chess, but she was forced to eat humble pie when I defeated her today.
Eating Umble Pie
Humble pie comes from umble pie. Umble pie is a pie made from the ‘umbles’ of animals. As far back as the 14th and 15th centuries, the umbles (numbles) were unwanted parts of animals: heart, liver, intestines. Today, we call these unwanted bits offal. The word umble appears to be an Anglicized (made into English) version of ombles. Ombles is a Norman French word for the intestines of deer.
The first mention of the umbles being baked into a pie comes from a 1662 journal written by Samuel Pepys, “I having some venison given me a day or two ago, and so I had a shoulder roasted, another baked, and the umbles baked in a pie, and all very well done.”
Humble sounds similar to umble and would sometimes be written without the ‘h’ before the spelling became standardized. It is not difficult to see how the connection between these words would lead to humble pie. Umble was gradually lost from the English language while the phrase humble pie lives on. Eating humble pie first appears in print on January 18th, 1812 in The Carolina Federal Republican. However, a 1774 puzzle published in The Hiberian Magazine suggests that a figurative use of humble pie was already in use at that time.
Since offal (umbles or numbles) is less desirable, the only people eating umble pie would have been the lower class. Their lowly and humble life may have made helped to popularize the word. Perhaps an unlucky business man would be forced to eat umble pie if his investments didn’t work out well.
What do you like?
When I think of pies, I think of fruit pies, but a lot of people think of meat pies. I think my favorite pie is either blueberry pie or Dutch apple pie. Though, I did enjoy a very nice lamb pie once. What is your favorite pie?
See Also: Humblebrag, In the doghouse, Putting your foot in your mouth, 10 French Words
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Reference:
http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/umbleornumblepie.htm
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/eat-humble-pie.html
https://culinarylore.com/food-history:eating-humble-pie/
https://www.etymonline.com/word/humble%20pie
https://wordhistories.net/2017/04/30/to-eat-humble-pie/