The notion of a pinch is used in colloquial language to refer to a small portion of something . It is a portion or a tiny fraction .
For example: “I think we lacked a bit of luck to go further in the tournament” , “The singer's new medical report gave a hint of hope to his admirers, although specialists warned that the picture is still very complex” , “The actress surprised by showing up with just a hint of makeup at the film's premiere.”
The concept of pinch is often used in the field of gastronomy . Many cooks, when sharing their recipes through television shows, Internet videos, books or websites, use the term pinch in reference to the minimum amount of an ingredient .
Thus we find expressions such as “pinch of salt” , “pinch of wine” , “pinch of nutmeg” , “pinch of sugar” , etc.: “We must add a pinch of salt to the mixture” , “So that the stew is great, I recommend adding a pinch of wine during cooking” , “This sauce is made with a pinch of nutmeg”, “The preparation only requires a pinch of sugar” .
In Mexico, this term has a very particular use, which is not found natively anywhere else in the world. In this case it is a Nahuatlism that comes from the word pixca , a verb that can roughly be translated as " harvest ." It is important to note that in this context it is used specifically to refer to the action of removing fruits from trees; For the fruits of the soil there is the verb to pick and for the seeds, simply harvest .
The pronominal phrase “not a bit” , finally, is used as a synonym for nothing and implies a negation: “I don't have the slightest bit of sleep” (whoever says this affirms that he has no desire or need to sleep), “The president does not understand not even a bit of economics” (the president lacks economic knowledge), “The film was not even a bit funny” (the film proposal was not funny).
There are other expressions that have equivalent or very similar uses. The most similar is "not a pinch," which is used in Mexico, as well as "not a little " or "not a sink." In Spain there are also "ni mijita", while in Colombia they use "ni una miga", "ni una migaja" and "ni una migajita".
This term is very common in everyday speech, both to denote a physical quantity of a material and a symbolic magnitude, as demonstrated in the previous examples. Saying that something has not caused us "not even a bit of pleasure" is not directly compared to having eaten "a pinch of bread", since in the first case we are talking about an amount that is impossible to measure precisely ("a lot" or " little grace are relative measurements) while bread can be cut into portions that have well-defined dimensions and mass.
Of course, in both cases these are small amounts, generally insufficient to satisfy the needs of the subject. For example, when we are told a joke we expect to laugh a lot, for it to cause us "a lot" of fun ; Therefore, if the result is "a pinch" then we could consider it poor. With respect to food, it is more relative: if we are very hungry but little food and, therefore, we can only eat "a pinch", the result is negative; If, on the other hand, we decide to eat in moderation to take care of our figure, it is positive.
Let's look at some of the synonyms for pinch that are most frequently used in everyday speech: crumb, miaja, particle , pinch, drop, insignificance and giblet . Two possible antonyms in popular language are heap and mogollón .