At dinner this evening we talked about dinner table phrases.
F.H.B. is McQuillin code for “family hold back” – a warning to the family that food was running low and guests should have second servings before the family.
M.I.K. offered the opposite message: more in kitchen.
But the phrase that got us all interested was “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency; any more would be a burden.” It means you’re full and don’t want any more food.
It turns out that this isn’t unique to grandmother Bobby McQuillin. It’s from a poem called Spring written by James Thomson in the early 18th century:
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven;
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love.
“An elegant sufficiency” has morphed into “my sufficiency is suffonsified.” Eh? Explanation available at World Wide Words
