Curate’s egg

A curate’s egg is something that is partly good but partly bad and therefore not satisfactory. The expression derives from a cartoon in Punch in 1895, which provoked such a good laugh back then that it has now passed into the language. The cartoon depicted a meek and very nervous curate having breakfast with his bishop. The bishop says, “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg Mr Jones.” To which the curate replies, “Oh no, my Lord. I assure you, parts of it are excellent.” The expression became so widely used at the beginning of the 20th century that Henry Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1928) lists it under ‘Hackneyed Phrases’.