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"too much on their plate"

Posted by Smokey Stover on February 15, 2005

In Reply to: "Too much on their plate" posted by ESC on February 15, 2005

: : Help - can anyone tell me when this phrase first was used?
: : Thanks

: It's a fairly recent "buzz phrase" in business in the U.S. But "have a lot on one's plate" must have some age on it because it is in this reference: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable revised by Adrian Room (HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1999, Sixteenth Edition).

On one's plate, figuratively used. One can have "enough on my plate," meaning all I can handle, or "too much" or just "a lot." The latter is cited by the OED from 1928. SS

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