There are “paper tigers” in almost every department of life. “-the loud laugh betrays the vacant mind.” One of the most celebrated poets of our language, has said: They call him a “paper tiger.” Nothing could be more significant.-Every neighborhood has its paper tiger its hero of the hour, an individual who is constantly describing the feats he has performed, or that he would have performed, had he been in such and such a situation. The Chinese have a very expressive way of describing a mighty blusterer. “Guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums and thunder!” He has confessed the nature of the conspiracy, impeached accomplices, begs for mercy, and is a complete impersonation of what the Chinese call a “paper-tiger.”Ĥ-: From the Saturday Courier ( Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Saturday 30 th August 1845-several U.S. Several men, who were disguised as Indians, are in custody for murder arms have been seized, and the braggart chief, who adopted the soubriquet of “Big Thunder,” now that he is in prison, shows a pusillanimity and a craven spirit that ill accords with his tremendous threats and name. The weakness of our adversaries has been more and more manifest, and churchmen begin to find, to use a Chinese proverb, that they “have been frightened at a paper tiger.”ģ-: From the account of an agrarian insurrection in the state of New York, published in The Morning Chronicle (London, England) of Wednesday 29 th January 1845: A blustering, harmless fellow they call “a paper tiger.” When a man values himself overmuch, they compare him to “a rat falling into a scale, and weighing itself.”-Overdoing a thing, they call “a hunchback making a bow.”-A spendthrift they compare to “a rocket,” which goes off at once.-Those who expend their charity on remote objects, but neglect their family, are said to “hang a lantern on a pole, which is seen afar, but gives no light below.”Ģ-: From the address of the Birmingham Church of England Lay Association, published in The Manchester Courier, and Lancashire General Advertiser (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Saturday 5 th September 1840: Some of the ordinary expressions of the Chinese are pointed and sarcastic enough. newspapers reprinted this paragraph, thus popularising the phrase paper tiger: These are the earliest occurrences of the phrase paper tiger that I have found, in chronological order:ġ-: From The Chinese: A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants, published in The Library of Entertaining Knowledge (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), by the British colonial governor and sinologist John Francis Davis (1795-1890)-many British and U.S. This phrase is modelled on Chinese zhǐlǎohǔ, from zhǐ, paper, and lǎohǔ, tiger. The phrase paper tiger denotes a person, country, etc., that appears powerful or threatening but is actually weak or ineffective.
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