31–40 of 62 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my friends wanted to make Lemon Rice as good as his mother's. He always followed the recipe religiously, but it never tasted the same. Eventually, he insisted on watching his mother make the dish. Only for her to use limes. "Aha!" he said. "Indian Lemons" she replied. :-)
My Baubi famously wrote all the recipes down wrong so no one else would make it quite like her.
A smidgen is precisely defined ... just not in relation to another physical quantity. (And any one smidgen is not necessarily the same as another.) The smidgen is defined by its effect. A smidgen of X is the precise amount of X that produces the desired taste. Obvious really.
Me: "A smidgen of days"
A smidgen is the single, slightly oversized bite of food you have after finishing your first serving and are basically full but it tastes too good to stop eating. OK, just a smidgen more... Followed in our family by "a stopper" if it is exceptionally good.
Also known as the regret bite.
2/5's of a skosh, duh.
It defined a "pugil" as "the amount you can pick up between your thumb and first two fingers".
I wonder how many more of these eminently practical, useful terms have been lost to the centuries. Perhaps they're still in use, in the appropriate fields of endeavor.
“A smidgen is just a teeeenie, little bit… 3 smidgens make one pinch. 4 pinches equals one little bit. 4 little bits equal one midlin’ amount. 3 midlin’ amounts equal one right smart and it takes 5 right smarts to make a whole heap.” -Jed Clampett of Beverly Hillbillies
If it's not "just a smidgen," then it's not a smidgen.