This is the time of year when many of us gather for big meals, some of them fried, and spend time with the “small fry” in the family. Here’s a linguistic twist though - the "fry" in "small fry" has nothing to do with cooking.
The inspiration for this week’s topic comes from a blog post by poet Linda Sienkiewicz. She shared this story:
I was supposed to babysit the grandkids, so I texted my daughter: “What time are you bringing the small fry over tomorrow?” Apparently she assumed fry meant one child, and reminded me both children were coming. I knew that. I texted back, “Small fry IS plural.”
Apparently, Sienkiewicz's daughter had never heard the phrase "small fry" to refer to children before and thought "small fries" made more sense, since more than one child would be coming over. While it's true that some people are starting to interpret "small fry" as singular, historically, it's a collective noun, like "offspring" or "personnel."
For Sienkiewicz and many others, "small fries" refers to something you'd order at McDonald's with a side of ketchup.
The "fry" in "small fry" is borrowed into English from an Old Norse word for "offspring." Early on, it referred specifically to young fish. Later, the meaning expanded to other young creatures and eventually to young people.
The earliest uses of "small fry" really did refer to small fish. You might read about “a bushel of small fry” or a lake “swarming with small fry.” By the mid-1600s, people were also using it to describe small or insignificant things, as well as unimportant people or children.
By the mid-1800s, "small fry" had become flexible enough to modify other nouns. Someone might refer to “small fry lawyers” or “small fry politicians."
This topic got us thinking about a another food-related way to describe insignificance: "small potatoes." To hear our discussion, listen to the audio above.
