說到底，這是小事一樁。

After all，this is a tempest in a teapot.

請教譯文點評

My comments:

Tempest is the word for a storm of the most violent kind, with wild gusts of wind blowing off roofs, uprooting trees and whipping up huge waves in the sea, things of that nature.

The tea cup, holding a mere mouthful of water, isn’t big enough for stirring up a tempest in, obviously.

Hence, if you try to whip up a tempest in a teapot, you are, to use another cliché, trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

In other words, you’re making a fuss, taking issue with something so small that it, quite frankly, should be an issue at all.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.