War and Piece

Starting this blog entry is a piece of cake.

It's easy.

A piece of cake isn't that easy, though. It involves the baking of a cake. Which can be difficult. Not only that, but it requires a knife and some cutting. It's not that easy.

For that reason, the expression has fallen out of favour. There's a more popular variant: "a piece of piss".

You may hear it being said by an idiot in a pub:

"Nah, mate - it was a piece of piss!"

[TRANSLATION: "Perish the thought, my dear fellow! In fact, this particular incident passed without incident!]

I wish I was there when that expression was invented. I would have liked to have seen its origin, seen the expression on the face of the speaker, and to ask, clearly and firmly, "what do you mean, exactly?"

***

A quick interlude to tell you about an excellent anecdote (which I think I heard on the Armando Iannucci Shows DVD commentary). Apparently, Iannucci (or The 'Nooch) was at a literary festival, in a tent next to Harold Pinter's (when he was alive, obviously, not at some kind of wake).

The 'Nooch had a large crowd of people, and used them to speak out to the great writer. He got everyone to shout in unison: "Oi, Harold! What do you mean exactly?"

The word genius is overused, but that is geniusgenius.

***

So, where were we? Oh yes: a piece of piss.

A piece of piss.

It was a piece of piss.

How did that happen?

I suppose a piece of cake was chosen as it is simple and pleasurable and self-contained. The same can't really be said for piss.

For one thing, it doesn't come in pieces. If you're pissing in pieces, you should probably see a urologist.

It's not really pleasurable, either (unless you've been holding it in for ages).

It is easy, I'll give them that.

Urinating (I find) is, on the whole, less work than baking a cake. Baking involves various stages of mixing, whisking and creaming that aren't really necessary for doing a wee.

On the whole.

Even so, the leap from "cake" to "piss" is a large one. I don't know if there were any intermediate stages. (eg. cake > muffin > cupcake > piss)

I don't think you can go any farther, though.

You can't ascribe credibility to the same idiot in the same pub if he says:

"Nah, mate - it was a piece of shit!"

[TRANSLATION: ""Perish the thought, my dear fellow! In fact... uh... hmm.

...

There was excrement."]

A piece of shit is reserved for an actual piece of shit, or a person of whose behaviour you disapprove.

"You're a real piece of shit, you know that?!"

"Do you mean I'm as easy as cake?"

"Uh... what?"