I like English, literature, and grammar. I always liked learning about idioms and phrases when I was in English class. However, I certainly never learned about all the phrases that are in common use and I still use some today that make me wonder about the origins of the phrases.
The first time I remember hearing this phrase is when I was in sixth grade and we had a health unit in physical fitness class. Instead of doing any exercises or sports for one day, everybody in the class had a reading done for blood pressure. I went up for my turn and sat as calmly as possible like I was told. As the automatic blood pressure machine did it’s routine, when it was finished, the teacher said, “Perfect. As cool as a cucumber.”
I was not sure what this meant at all. I later learned that it mean calm. I began to wonder why cucumbers were cool. I thought about things and if they were growing in a warm climate, they wouldn’t be cool. I guessed if you refrigerated cucumbers, they would be cool.
I wondered why it wasn’t another type of vegetable, too. Could any other vegetables be cool? Could this phrase possibly be a simple as a cucumber being cool?
I knew that cucumbers in the grocery store always felt cool, but most vegetables felt cool when they were displayed in a grocery store.
Researching the phrase, it tells me that the origin is that simple. It says that “cucumbers are cool to the touch.”
The first recorded incident of the phrase is “I . . . cool as a cucumber could see the rest of womankind.” This is in Poems, New Song on Smiles by John Gay, published in 1732.
So, why not as cool as a carrot? I’ll never really know, but I guess since both have the benefit of sounding nice to the ear, perhaps it is the green color of the cucumber that really makes it a great phrase as green is a cool color and the adjusted orange color of the carrot – or even most of the original colors – are not cool colors.
Source:
Martin, Gary. “As cool as a cucumber”. The Phrase Finder. February 8, 2010 http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/38500.html>.
