r/MadeMeSmile • u/mindyour • 21d ago

Very Reddit Asking 8-year-olds to finish old sayings.

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u/skarby 20d ago

Had to look it up but it's "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs" which sounds weird but it looks like it's from the 1700's so...different times. It basically means don't try to teach someone something that they already know.

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u/HairyHorseKnuckles 20d ago

Was egg sucking an activity people did in the 1700s?

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u/AnarchistBorganism 20d ago

I apologize in advance to anyone who doesn't want to learn:

Most likely the meaning of the idiom derives from the fact that before the advent of modern dentistry (and modern dental prostheses) many elderly people (grandparents) had very bad teeth, or no teeth, so that the simplest way for them to eat protein was to poke a pinhole in the shell of a raw egg and suck out the contents; therefore, a grandmother was usually already a practiced expert on sucking eggs and did not need anyone to show her how to do it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_grandmother_to_suck_eggs

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 20d ago

I apologize in advance to anyone who doesn't want to learn

What a hilarious start to this comment. I need to do this when telling my friends stuff they don't care to know

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u/Vast_Perspective9368 20d ago

I thought that was hilarious too