Mixing up the clichés at the NYT: "Will Trump Trade the Future for a Hill of Beans?" - Hallo friendsINFO TODAY, In the article you read this time with the title Mixing up the clichés at the NYT: "Will Trump Trade the Future for a Hill of Beans?", We have prepared this article for you to read and retrieve information therein. Hopefully the contents of postings Article economy, Article health, Article hobby, Article News, Article politics, Article sports, We write this you can understand. Alright, good read.

Title : Mixing up the clichés at the NYT: "Will Trump Trade the Future for a Hill of Beans?"
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Mixing up the clichés at the NYT: "Will Trump Trade the Future for a Hill of Beans?"

That's the headline for a piece by The Editorial Board, with the subtitle "The outlines of a potential trade deal with China suggest President Trump once again is prioritizing superficial gains over America’s long-term economic interests."

The bean cliché never comes up in the text of the column, though actual beans — soybeans — are part of the discussion, which created the temptation to use a bean cliché in the headline.

His decision to go it alone, rather than making common cause with longstanding allies, was ill advised, and his tit-for-tat trade war has caused significant pain for many Americans.... But Mr. Trump was right to argue that China has engaged in unfair competition. The question is whether he can win significant concessions....

This is a surprising amount of support for Trump from the NYT.  Mr. Trump was right...

The failure of previous administrations to hold China to account on [currency manipulation] has passed beyond remedy.... The looming risk... is that Mr. Trump will accept a deal that allows him to claim a superficial triumph without forcing China to make enduring changes.

Trump is the one who's willing to walk away from deals, and though the NYT doesn't give recognition to that strength of his, the NYT is showing some support. How about if you, NYT, don't attack him when he does walk away from a deal? You have the power to remove some of the pressure to claim "a superficial triumph." Stop undermining him. Give him half the support you gave the "previous adminstration[]," which escapes even getting named as you mildly observe its "failure."

In particular, the United States should reject any Chinese offer to guarantee large-scale purchases of American agricultural products like soybeans or energy products like liquid natural gas — indeed, guaranteed purchases of any kind.... 

Now, about that cliché — trading X for a hill of beans. First, the cliché is especially bad because we have the soybeans, so if X equals "the Future" and we trade, we get the Future, which would make it a great deal, and that's not what you mean to say.

But put that problem aside. And put aside the problem of using clichés generally. I disapprove, but I'm not going to harp on that. You're trying to use a cliché, but you've got the wrong bean cliché. You trade X for a handful of beans. It's from the "Jack and the Beanstalk" story. The "hill of beans" cliché is doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Use "handful" when referring to a trade and "hill" when you're just looking at something that's supposed to be big and judging it to be small.

I don't know where "hill of beans" got started. According to The Farmer's Almanac the phrase "not worth a bean" was around as far back as 1297. A bean is worth even less than a hill of beans, so it's odd that "not worth a hill of beans" developed later, "around 1863," when "'a hill of' was often inserted into phrases to emphasize their meaning." I get the sense that "beans" was a euphemism for "shit." I'm seeing (in the OED):

1874 Hotten's Slang Dict. (rev. ed.) 171 Full of beans, arrogant, purseproud. A person whom sudden prosperity has made offensive and conceited, is said to be too ‘full of beans’. Originally stable slang.

Anyway, "doesn't amount to a hill of beans" was a well-worn colloquialism when Humphrey Bogart deployed it in World War II in the name of personal sacrifice for the greater good:



By the way, in "Jack and the Beanstalk," Jack is a fool who is tricked into selling his family's cow for a handful of beans he's told are magic. But in the story the beans actually do turn out to be magic, and in the end his family gets rich. So there's good reason to shy away from the "handful of beans" cliché.

Indeed, Trump often looks like the hero in this story, seeming to be a fool, and our story-addled minds may fall into believing things will work out great for him in the end. Jack was vindicated, after all.

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