Responding to someone during a dispute with What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? is a way to deflect the comment or derail the discussion entirely. While the phrase the price of tea in China is the most common version, there’s also What does that have to do with the price of beans? Other commodities whose prices are also questioned in this way include fish, cheese, meat, cotton, fur, beer, eggs, as well as the price of eggs in Russia. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What Does That Have to Do With the Price Of…?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Paul Gatone. I’m from Tucson, Arizona.
Hey, Paul. What’s on your mind?
Well, when I was a kid, if you were having a discussion or a disagreement with my dad, he would say, what does that have to do with the price of beans? I mean, I knew what it meant, that it meant something was irrelevant, but I was wondering where the heck it came from and, you know, the origin of that particular saying.
So it was a way of dismissing you from the conversation.
Yeah, dismissing me from the conversation as, you know, bringing up something that was irrelevant.
Was there anything else that he said instead of beans when he was talking about the price of something?
Well, he also would say, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? That’s what I was looking for. Because that was a lot more common. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Meaning, what does that have to do with anything?
But other people have said, instead of beans or tea in China, they’ve said fish or cheese or meat or eggs or eggs in Russia or tobacco or wheat. And all of these are a way of acting as if the person who’s interjecting their comment is even more out of place than they actually are by acting for a moment as if you were talking about something even further afield than you were.
And you know what? It goes back quite a ways, at least to the 1830s.
Right.
Well, my dad was a kid in a turd. Beans were cheap.
Aha, there you go. Yeah, beans were probably cheap back then. But you’ll find the price of whatever, so cotton or furs or beer, but the price of tea in China is a very common phrasing of it.
Right.
My wife said that her father used to use that expression too.
Yeah, you know, I find it to be one of those expressions that’s kind of falling by the wayside because it doesn’t, it just rings weirdly to the modern era, I think.
Yeah, and it just takes you out of the conversation, right?
Yeah, it’s not inclusive.
Well, there you go, Paul. I hope that helps.
Great.
It did. Thanks very much. I appreciate being on the show.
Yeah, take care of yourself.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.
What do beans have to do with all the words in the dictionary?
I don’t know.
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