As cool as a cucumber

A green snake on a tree, but it's easy to mistake for a bent cucumber.
(Photo: Jack B/Unsplash | Text: David/ArtisanEnglish.jp)

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English Idiom: As cool as a cucumber

Are you the type of person who stresses out easily, or are you generally the only one in the room who is as cool as a cucumber?


The expression is as cool as a cucumber because cucumbers are 11°C cooler on the inside than the ambient temperature outside. It’s a proven fact.


I used to be a very Nervous Nelly in my younger days.

I was prone to having an upset stomach and could never sleep the night before an exam.

This was when I was in elementary school.

I remember having to take a big yellow school bus to junior high destroyed my nerves.

For one, I had never taken a bus to school in my life – I had always walked, and two, the bus was never on time.

Sometimes, it was 20 minutes early or 20 minutes late.

Other students calmly waited for the bus, just as cool as cucumbers, thank you very much, while I worried that it wasn’t coming or had already come and gone.

It wasn’t until I began backpacking when I was 21 that things settled down for me.

I realized that what happens happens, and you deal with it as it happens.

So, I trained myself to be as cool as a cucumber.

Whether my computer is not working correctly or my wife has set the frying pan on fire, I make a conscious effort to remain calm, cool and collected.

Mind, I said, I try.

No one is successful 100% of the time, but I do try.


Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.

The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.


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