Why do we say piping hot?
Question
When you buy a ready meal to put in the microwave, it says “make sure it’s piping hot”. Why do we say piping hot?Jenny, Bexley Heath
Answer
** Definitive **
Name: Chris, Richmond
Qualification: Plumber
Answer: In olden times, when radiators were used, they were called pipes, as we had piping tubes. So it’s a reference to the pipes heating up.
** Revoking above definitive **
Name: Nigel, Wandsworth
Qualification: My daughter told me
Answer: The above isn’t quite correct. My daughter tells me that Chaucer used the phrase piping hot in The Miller’s Tales, so it pre-dates radiators.
Name: Glenn, Saville Row
Qualification: An organist told me
Answer: I’m a piper in a London-Irish pipe band and I asked a tutor, who told me it’s to do with the tubes/pipes of an organ, which become very hot when they are played a lot.
(James O’Brien: Surely pipe organs weren’t around in Chaucer’s era?)
Do you know the answer? Write it in the box below…