But now, he conceded, it was time to eat humble pie.
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Those dismissing his grasscourt prowess were forced to eat humble pie last year when Nadal roared through to the semi-finals when he lost 8-6 in the fifth set to Novak Djokovic in one of the highest-quality matches ever seen on Centre Court.
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A country that had not claimed a global team medal for a decade, or any Olympic team prize since 2000, made China eat humble pie as they upstaged the 2008 and 2012 Olympic champions by taking silver behind a triumphant Japanese team in the men's final.
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Samuel Putnam Avery. Mrs. Partington's Carpet-Bag of Fun, "Crow eating", 1854, pg. 145. A similar British idiom is to eat humble pie. The English phrase is something of a pun--"umbles" were the intestines, offal and other less valued meats of a deer.
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Wiganers are proud to be called pie eaters, but the nickname is not thought to be because of their appetite for the delicacy. The name is said to date from the 1926 General Strike, when Wigan miners were starved back to work, before their counterparts in surrounding towns and were forced to eat "humble pie".
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The remarks backfired on De Villiers and he tried, in vain, to explain his remarks. South African supporters demanded that he no longer parade in the Springbok blazer, which he wears on all promotional photos, since he no longer supports the team. He had to eat humble pie when the Springboks went on to win the World Rugby Cup trophy, beating England 32-12 in the final, and tried to quell the stormy waters by congratulating the Springboks on their win. It is believed to have had a serious effect on his "master classes" which he offered to would-be rugby coaches.
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In the United States of America, there is a popular saying that "there are few things as American as apple pie". In the United States, pie and especially apple pie, became "bound up in American mythology" to the point that in 1902, The New York Times asserted that "Pie is the food of the heroic" and stated that "No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished". The slang expression to eat humble pie comes from the umble pie, which was made with "chopped or minced innards of an animal", a "cheap offal filling...eaten by the poor". The slang expression it's a piece of pie, meaning that something is easy, dates from 1889.
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The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University After the results were in and the Conservatives had won by a much smaller margin, on air Channel 4's Jon Snow said, "I know nothing, we the media, the pundits and experts, know nothing". A number of newspaper columnists expressed similar sentiments.D. Ponsford, 'Political columnists eat humble pie and apologise over dire election predictions for Corbyn and Labour' (12/06/17) on Press Gazette Some analysts and commentators have suggested the gap between the newspapers' strong support, and the public's marginal support, for the Conservatives in this election indicates a decline in the influence of print media, and/or that in 2017's election social media played a decisive role (perhaps being the first election in which this was the caseD. Lilleker, 'Like me, share me: the people’s social media campaign' in UK Election Analysis 2017: Media, Voters and the Campaign (June 2017).
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