tea and sympathy

tea and sympathy

A supportive display of sympathy for one who is upset. The image is that of one providing a cup of tea to someone to soothe them while listening to their troubles. I know you have a lot going on, but the least you can do is offer Hannah a little tea and sympathy during her time of grief.
See also: and, sympathy, tea
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

tea and sympathy

hospitality and consolation offered to a distressed person.
See also: and, sympathy, tea
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

TLC

Acronym for tender loving care. In modern times this phrase is believed to have originated in a hospital or other sick-care setting, where it alludes to kind and solicitous treatment by nurses. From the mid-1900s on it caught on in a more general way, particularly among songwriters, according to wordsmith Nigel Rees, who found nearly a dozen songs with this title written between 1960 and 1983. Today the term, both spelled out and abbreviated, is applied to kind or gentle treatment for almost anything—a pet, person, plant, automobile, and so on. It has just about replaced the almost synonymous tea and sympathy, meaning special kindness shown to someone who is upset. This term was always most common in Britain, where a cup of tea is standard treatment in such situations. It gained currency as the title of a play by Robert Anderson and a motion picture based on it (1956) about a prep school boy’s affair with a teacher’s wife, but it has largely died out, at least in America.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • drive (one) out of office
  • force (one) out of office
  • force out of office
  • give (one) (one's) head
  • give head
  • give somebody their head
  • give someone their head
  • cooking for one
  • 1FTR
  • as one door closes, another opens
References in periodicals archive
|Music fans in 1970 eat fish and chips at the Sophia Gardens pavilion while watching a non-stop |12-hour concert featuring the bands Black Sabbath, Daddy Long Legs and Tea and Sympathy |Music fans in 1970 eat fish and chips at the Sophia Gardens pavilion while watching a non-stop |12-hour concert featuring the bands Black Sabbath, Daddy Long Legs and Tea and Sympathy
South Wales' chippies are second to none
Tea and sympathy surely beats hatred and prejudice every time.
BEATING HATE WITH A BICCIE
FORGET tea and sympathy. Malky Mackay is looking forward to celebrating Cardiff's Championship-winning season with a cuppa at the table of Sir Alex Ferguson.
CHAMPIONS! Mackay on a high thanks to pep talk from Sir Alex
Singing 18 songs spanning over 15 years of recordings, Jars of Clay performed its most popular hits "Flood," "You Were There," "Show You Love" and "Tea and Sympathy" to an appreciative audience that included entire family members, even infants in strollers, and not a few foreigners.
Easter crowd opens eyes, ears to Jars of Clay
TEA AND SYMPATHY: Elderly are entitled to proper healthcare
Elderly must get best care; Yourview: Comment OF THE DAY
Tea and Sympathy is a new initiative from the Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Partnership.
Brewing smiles in cafes
MADGE has turned to Posh and Becks for tea and sympathy - at Nobu in LA on Thursday.
3am: Madonna has a Posh meal out
I wonder if Christopher Capozzola, author of the Essay, "Fifty Years of Tea and Sympathy" (January-February, 2007), is aware that in author Robert Sherwood's original version of Tea and Sympathy the ambivalent young man was befriended by a male faculty member at his prep school, reflecting a personal experience of his at Exeter.
An even gayer Tea and Sympathy?
So maybe a bit of tea and sympathy, along with a good dose of praise, would have been more sporting than laughing at his stomach contents.
Discontent at David's tummy
* Make coupon books for things like, "Wash the dishes every weekend for one month," "Shovel the snow on driveway," "Cup of tea and sympathy," "10minute backrub," "Free hug," "Free knitting lessons."
Dreaming of a simple Christmas: a look at delivering the joys of Yuletide without ever visiting a shopping mall
Trailers for such films as Tea and Sympathy, The Children's Hour, The Killing of Sister George, Midnight Cowboy, and Death in Venice are shown without commentary.
A double feature for film buffs
THE Prince of Wales this week dished out tea and sympathy to 250 farmers, vets and rural workers at a special reception at St James' Palace, London.
PRINCE DISHES OUT TEA AND SYMPATHY TO RURAL COMMUNITY; Farm and country
Mrs Hillary Clinton shared tea and sympathy with Russian businesswomen yesterday, making her first public appearance since her husband admitted to an affair with Miss Monica Lewinsky.
Cup of tea brims with sympathy
Although known best for his plays Tea and Sympathy (1953), which presents the problem confronting a lonely youth accused of homosexuality, and I Never Sang for My Father (1968), about alienation between a father and son, Anderson's major works also include The Eden Rose (1948), about the roles of sex and love in marriage; All Summer Long (1951), an adaptation of Donald Wetzel's novel A Curse and a Wreath, about the rites of passage; The Days Between (1965), about midlife crisis in a man whose marriage has grown stale; You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (1967), four short comedies that attack notions of American maleness; and Solitaire/Double Solitaire (1971), two short works produced together concerning aloneness and estrangement in marriage.
Anderson, Robert Woodruff (1917-)
Tea and Sympathy (1953; screenplay, 1956), Anderson 's first and greatest success, was the story of a sensitive boy unjustly suspected of homosexuality, who is helped through his misery by the compassionate wife of his housemaster.
Anderson, Robert W(oodruff)