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Tough Nuts To Crack Meaning: Examples of Using this Expression in Everyday Speech



The English language has some great words that mean the same thing. Mysteries, riddles, and enigmas are all hard nuts to crack. In 1939, then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used these words to describe Russian intentions in World War II.




Tough Nuts To Crack Meaning




The exact origin of "A hard nut to crack" is somewhat unknown. Yet, people have discovered this is an early metaphoric idiom. It is a reference for a strong nutshell (like a walnut) and how stiff it is when you try to open it. One of the first registers we can find is in a Benjamin Franklin letter in 1745: "Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack, and your teeth are not used to it." Dickens also said in his very known novel Barnaby Rudge in 1841: "Rather a tough nut to crack in argument, Joe, if anybody was to try and tackle him."


Nuts and honey appear in the minds of many people when they think back to the gifts St. Nicholas brought them as a child. Even today, many families crack nuts during Advent and the internet offers all sorts of delicious recipes on how best to prepare honey-roasted nuts.


Because the first nutcrackers were made as replicas of soldiers and other figures of authority. The common folk took great enjoyment in having the ruling people working for them, cracking their "hard nuts of life". The term "wooden toy soldier" differentiates this type of nutcracker from the other types. We call it a nutcracker if it has a handle in the back that opens the mouth, even if it is too small to actually crack a nut. Parts of the wooden toy soldier are turned on a lathe, as versus the intricate hand carved design.


The wooden toy soldier nutcrackers were initially made to crack nuts, and since they did crack nuts for the family, it is very difficult to find an old nutcracker in good condition. It was only after people started collecting the wooden toy soldiers that the makers began ceating the solely as a decoration. Several makers still make them sturdy enough to crack a small nut, but usually people do not want to have the paint damaged so will use a mechanical nutcracker to do the work.


"To foster and encourage the interest of the general public of the importance of nuts in the diets of humans throughout history and in the evolution of the nutcracker. No other tool or collectible has shown such a wide diversity of material and design as the implements used to crack the hard shell of a nut".


Despite their large body size, gorillas are known to have a vegetarian diet consisting almost exclusively of leafy vegetation and fruit. Their teeth are large and high-crested when compared with other great apes, which is usually seen as an adaptation to spending a large amount of time chewing tough fibrous plant material. In contrast, their teeth are not well adapted to eating hard objects, such as nuts encased in a woody shell, because the high crests on their molar teeth would be at risk of damage.


A team of scientists from Washington University in St. Louis and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have observed a population of western lowland gorillas in Loango National Park, Gabon, using their teeth to crack open the woody shells of Coula edulis nuts.


The researchers were surprised to learn that the gorillas at Loango are regularly gambling with their teeth and taxing them close to their predicted mechanical limits. While some primates, like chimps, protect their teeth by using tools to crack open nuts, it appears that the gorillas at Loango National Park rely on brute strength to break through the woody shells of Coula edulis nuts. The fact they do this year after year indicates that gorilla teeth may be stronger than previously thought.


Coula edulis nuts, otherwise known as Gabon nuts or African walnuts, are encased in a hard, woody shell that takes around 271 kg of force to crack. Yet for the three months of the year that the nuts are available, the gorillas of Loango National Park concentrate their feeding on the energy-rich kernels, spending up to three hours per day chomping through nuts.


This is surprising as animals that eat very hard food items tend to have strong, rounded molars that act like a pestle and mortar and are very efficient at cracking brittle foods. Like other foliage eaters, gorilla teeth have higher crests providing extra cutting edges for slicing tough material. Under the monumental bite force required to crack nuts, teeth with sharp edges are prone to break, meaning they may be worn away quickly.


The research also suggests that western lowland gorillas have much greater dietary breadth than previously believed. The absence of nut-cracking behavior in other populations of western gorillas where the nuts also are present suggests the behavior may be cultural, and gorillas need to observe and learn the behavior from other group members.


We know that colorectal cancer is the valley of death for many, many drug-development programs. It's a tough nut to crack. And KRAS has been among the most intriguing of targets for the past 20 years or so. It's been extraordinarily difficult to find drugs that are active against it. KRAS is one of the earliest oncogenes identified. I remember when I was a youngster doing my PhD at Beatson Cancer Centre with Allan Balmain, who was one of the early discoverers and worked with KRAS extensively. And here we are 30 years later, at last, with some potential drugs that may work.


Well, yes, interviews are considered to be a tough nut to crack because in an interview the applicant is required to sit before a panel of professionals. They ask multiple varieties of questions which can also include a set of situational questions. The applicants must be knowledgeable, wise, prepared, creative, and diligent enough to answer each type of question asked by the seniors.


This is why it is considered a tough nut to crack but you can make your way by preparing perfectly for the interview. So, go ahead with the article and acknowledge the interview skills along with the program that can equip you with all the required knowledge for the interview.


The primary tip to crack a tough interview is to have deep knowledge about the task offered to the designation that you are applying for. You must be perfectly knowledgeable about the requirements of the company. You must know the ways to uplift the company and add positive value to it.


A nutcracker is a tool designed to open nuts by cracking their shells. There are many designs, including levers, screws, and ratchets. The lever version is also used for cracking lobster and crab shells.


During the Victorian era, fruit and nuts were presented at dinner and ornate and often silver-plated nutcrackers were produced to accompany them on the dinner table.[1] Nuts have long been a popular choice for desserts, particularly throughout Europe. The nutcrackers were placed on dining tables to serve as a fun and entertaining center of conversation while diners awaited their final course. At one time, nutcrackers were actually made of metals such as brass, and it was not until the 1800s in Germany that the popularity of wooden ones began to spread.[4]


The late 19th century saw two shifts in nutcracker production: the rise in figurative and decorative designs, particularly from the Alps where they were sold as souvenirs, and a switch to industrial manufacture, including availability in mail-order catalogues, rather than artisan production.[1] After the 1960s, the availability of pre-shelled nuts led to a decline in ownership of nutcrackers and a fall in the tradition of nuts being put in children's Christmas stockings.[1]


In the 17th century, screw nutcrackers were introduced that applied more gradual pressure to the shell, some like a vise.[1] The spring-jointed nutcracker was patented by Henry Quackenbush in 1913.[5] A ratchet design, similar to a car jack, that gradually increases pressure on the shell to avoid damaging the kernel inside is used by the Crackerjack, patented in 1947 by Cuthbert Leslie Rimes of Morley, Leeds and exhibited at the Festival of Britain.[6][7][8][9] Unshelled nuts are still popular in China, where a key device is inserted into the crack in walnuts, pecans, and macadamias and twisted to open the shell.[10]


Nutcrackers in the form of wood carvings of a soldier, knight, king, or other profession have existed since at least the 15th century. Figurative nutcrackers are a good luck symbol in Germany, and a folktale recounts that a puppet-maker won a nutcracking challenge by creating a doll with a mouth for a lever to crack the nuts.[3] These nutcrackers portray a person with a large mouth which the operator opens by lifting a lever in the back of the figurine. Originally one could insert a nut in the big-toothed mouth, press down and thereby crack the nut. Modern nutcrackers in this style serve mostly for decoration, mainly at Christmas time, a season of which they have long been a traditional symbol.[11] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, derives its name from this festive holiday decoration.


Decorative nutcrackers became popular in the United States after the Second World War, following the first US production of The Nutcracker ballet in 1940 and the exposure of US soldiers to the dolls during the war.[12] In the United States, few of the decorative nutcrackers are now functional, though expensive working designs are still available.[12] Many of the woodworkers in Germany were in Erzgebirge, in the Soviet zone after the end of the war, and they mass-produced poorly-made designs for the US market. With the increase in pre-shelled nuts, the need for functionality was also lessened. After the 1980s, Chinese and Taiwanese imports that copied the traditional German designs took over.[3][12] The recreated "Bavarian village" of Leavenworth, Washington, features a nutcracker museum. Many other materials also serve to make decorated nutcrackers, such as porcelain, silver, and brass; the museum displays samples. The United States Postal Service (USPS) issued four stamps in October 2008 with custom-made nutcrackers made by Richmond, Virginia artist Glenn Crider.[13] 2ff7e9595c


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