Not have all their marbles

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Someone who is thought to be crazy is said to have not all the cups in their closet . Cup is also used in other idioms in the sense of intellect or spirit . A boring person is also said to be a cloudy cup . The phrase that someone's cup has a crack (more precisely: 'a crack in the bowl') is rarely used today. In all of these expressions the expression cup has nothing to do with the homonymous word cup as a drinking vessel, as for example in the expression: high the cups ; rather, the phrase derives from the Yiddish word toshia , which means something like understanding .

literature

  • Wolf, SA: He doesn't have all the cups in his cupboard - explanation of some of Berlin's sayings. In: Mother tongue , 66th year (1956), p. 6458