hot potato vs pickle

hot potato

noun
  • A child's game in which players pass a ball or other item between them, with the object of avoiding being left holding the item when time expires. 

  • An awkward or delicate problem with which nobody wants to be associated. 

pickle

noun
  • A children’s game with three participants that emulates a baseball rundown 

  • A difficult situation; peril. 

  • A sweet, vinegary pickled chutney popular in Britain. 

  • A mildly mischievous loved one. 

  • A penis. 

  • A bath of dilute sulphuric or nitric acid, etc., to remove burnt sand, scale, rust, etc., from the surface of castings, or other articles of metal, or to brighten them or improve their colour. 

  • In an optical landing system, the hand-held controller connected to the lens, or apparatus on which the lights are mounted. 

  • Any vegetable preserved in vinegar and consumed as relish. 

  • A kernel; a grain (of salt, sugar, etc.) 

  • A pipe for smoking methamphetamine. 

  • The brine used for preserving food. 

  • A small or indefinite quantity or amount (of something); a little, a bit, a few. Usually in partitive construction, frequently without "of"; a single grain or kernel of wheat, barley, oats, sand or dust. 

  • A rundown. 

  • A cucumber preserved in a solution, usually a brine or a vinegar syrup. 

verb
  • To preserve food (or sometimes other things) in a salt, sugar or vinegar solution. 

  • To eat sparingly. 

  • To pilfer. 

  • To remove high-temperature scale and oxidation from metal with heated (often sulphuric) industrial acid. 

  • To pour brine over a person after flogging them, as a method of punishment. 

  • To serialize. 

How often have the words hot potato and pickle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )