Posted by Robert Hill on November 23, 2006 at 19:48:07 from 195.92.168.168 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Re: Teach Your Grandmother posted by David Shelton on November 23, 2006 at 10:10:59:
I too have always known this saying as "teach your granny [or grandmother] to suck eggs".
In the famous Riddle Game scene in chapter 5 of The Hobbit, which later became the link between that book and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien cleverly gives the saying an actuality. Bilbo asks Gollum a riddle to which the answer is an egg. At first Gollum has difficulty.
But suddenly Gollum remembered thieving from nests long ago, and sitting under the river bank teaching his grandmother, teaching his grandmother to suck -
"Eggses!" he hissed. "Eggses it is!"
It is probably because of this that in LotR Gandalf tells Frodo that Gollum's family was headed by his grandmother.