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Reader question: Please explain “tempest in a teapot”, as in: Due to a misunderstanding on the facts and the law by both sides, the squabble is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. My comments: In other words, no big deal. The incident is a non-issue – after both sides come to grips with the facts and relevant laws, the quarrel will cease. In another cliché, the incident is nothing more than making a mountain out of a molehill. The molehill is a tiny pile of earth made by a mole, a blind furry creature that lives underground by digging tunnels here and there – that’s the way moles forage for food. The molehill is the earth they dig out from the tunnels. A typical pile is, like, a meter tall, if that. And so obviously one is making a fuss if they call that pile of earth a mountain, which is a big hill. The Himalayas, for instance, are mountains. Alright, let’s get back to the tempest currently brewing in the teapot. A tempest is a literary man’s word for a wild storm. A storm is extreme whether featuring heavy downpours, thunders and lightening. The worst storm gives one the impression that the world is coming to an end. The teapot is, say, a kettle for boiling water in preparation for tea. If you open the lid of the teapot to observe the water boiling and evaporating, you’d observe something pretty, well, tumultuous going on. Tempestuous, too, if you insist, but obviously the world is not coming to an end or anything of that magnitude is going to happen. | 
