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Expressions like 'Don't burn your bridges' and 'Put a sock in it' refer to actions that are technically feasible, but may not always be wise. There are other phrases, though, that are more difficult to interpret. While we might nonchalantly tell someone to cry us a river, is it something they could actually do? This was the question that a group of students at the University of Leicester set out to explore. Their findings were published this month in the school's Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics.
'Cry me a river' is a phrase that has become a part of everyday language. However, unlike many other idioms, this one has a distinct origin: the songwriter Arthur Hamilton. In the early 1950s, Hamilton was composing a new song and wanted to convey a particular mood (one of bitterness), but he was in search of the perfect words.
'I had never encountered the phrase before,' Hamilton told the Wall Street Journal in 2010. 'I just liked the sound of the words … Instead of saying 'Eat your heart out' or 'I'll get back at you,' it felt like an intelligent comeback to someone who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart.'
Initially, the song seemed doomed to fail, with 38 artists turning it down. However, in 1955, jazz-pop singer Julie London decided to record it, and it quickly dominated the charts. Since then, it has been covered countless times, and the phrase became ingrained in American culture. 'Its widespread use as an insult still surprises and amuses me,' Hamilton remarked. 'Whenever my wife and I watch a film or TV show and the phrase is used, we laugh and nudge each other gently.'
The phrase likely made its way across the Atlantic as well, as two students at UL's Centre for Interdisciplinary Science chose to test the possibility.
Leah Ashley and Robbie Roe began their investigation by finding the shortest river in the world to give their hypothetical criers the best shot at meeting the required tear volume. The title goes to Montana's Roe River, which stretches a mere 201 feet and flows between 156 and 193 million gallons of water daily.
In comparison, the average human tear holds 0.0062 milliliters of liquid. Ashley and Roe quickly realized that no single individual could ever cry enough to form even a small river. Even if every person on Earth were crying their hearts out simultaneously, it still wouldn't be enough.
What about something smaller, like an Olympic-sized swimming pool? That seems more achievable. A standard pool, the authors note, measures 50 x 25 x 2 meters, with a capacity of 2,500,000 liters. If each of the approximately 7.4 billion people on Earth shed 55 tears, we could collectively fill that pool in a strange, somber victory of global unity.
Cheryl Hurkett, the authors' instructor, was thrilled with their paper. 'It always makes me happy to see my students so passionately involved in the topic,' she said in a press release. 'I encourage them to be as creative as they can in choosing their subjects, as long as they can support it with solid scientific facts, theories, and calculations!'
