Blown to smithereens
Why is this term used only in military, as far as I know, and only to describe destruction?
Dictionary's origin definition: From Irish Gaelic smidirn, diminutive of smiodar, small fragment.
If that description is so then why is it that you never hear it used technically or to describe other setting?
eg: "Starts out as large flakes then it becomes smithereens once it goes through this machine."
It doesn't sound right.
Solution 1:
Probably because the term has been associated to terms like blow or smash since its origin. Its usage can also be found outside military contexts as suggested in the extract from the MacMillan Dictionary below:
Blow to smithereens:
The notion of things being 'broken/smashed/blown to smithereens' dates from at least the turn of the 19th century. Francis Plowden, in The History of Ireland, 1801, records a threat made against a Mr. Pounden by a group of Orangemen:
- "If you don't be off directly, by the ghost of William, our deliverer, and by the orange we wear, we will break your carriage in smithereens, and hough your cattle and burn your house."
'Smithereens' is one of those unusual nouns that, like 'suds' and 'secateurs', never venture out by themselves - the word is always plural.
(The Phrase Finder)
Smithereens:
Contrary to the bucolic imagery of Heaney’s verse, smithereens usually involve violence, or at least vigorous activity. Things get blown, bombed, blasted, bashed, dashed, smashed and shot to (or “into”) smithereens. This activity often implicates material items, such as bricks, cities, or the good crockery, but it can also occur in a more figurative sense: one’s hopes and dreams can be smashed to smithereens.
The word’s popularity can probably be attributed at least partly to its euphony, the way it bounces out off the lips and teeth, pulling its Gaelic tail after it. But this is idle speculation. From its slightly obscure beginnings, in and out of Irish, smithereens has eased its way into all sorts of contexts, from descriptions of military destruction to poetic accounts of evolution. On that note, and to conclude, I leave you with a line by D. H. Lawrence:
- Then someone mysteriously touched the button, and the sun went bang, with smithereens of birds bursting in all directions.
(MacMillan Dictionary)
Smithereens
means tiny bits, shattered fragments. The word smithereens is often seen in the phrases blow, blew, blowing or blown to smithereens, and smash, smashes, smashing or smashed to smithereens.
The word smithereens can be traced back to the Irish Gaelic word smidirin, which is a diminutive of the word smiodar, which means piece or fragment. The suffix -een was tacked on as an additional diminutive.
- Smithereens appears at the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the variant spellings smiddereens and shivereens appearing at about the same time. Today, only the spelling smithereens has survived.
(The Grammarist)
Solution 2:
Stand on a chair, lift some crockery over your head and then drop it on an uncarpeted floor. Result: smithereens.
Example: "Inside the bathroom, the porcelain sink has been smashed to smithereens and the glass shower cubicle shattered."
How I found this example and many similar ones: I googled the following two words
smithereens porcelain
I have no idea where "Starts out as large flakes then it becomes smithereens once it goes through this machine" came from. It sounds strange to me too.