Egg cup : nm Un egg cup is a small coupe in which we put a œuf to eat it soft-boiled.
To win, to win, to win the egg cup: to succeed, to win the grand prize, to win the jackpot or the timpani (see below the origin of this expression).
The expression "Get the cup / the egg cup / the coconut palm": to obtain a disputed thing, an important result - Getting into trouble by dint of clumsiness.
The greasy pole is this post, coated with grease or soap, from the top of which various objects and food were suspended. The game was then to climb the mast and whoever managed to get part of the strut could congratulate himself on the thing: he had obtained a sacred result.
Hence the primary meaning of this expression.
Among the suspended objects, one could find a timpani or an egg cup, hence the use of these words in the first two variants of the phrase, the third (the coconut tree), being only an amusing deformation of the second.
By antiphrase, the expression has also taken on the second meaning proposed, the person concerned having succeeded in “winning” trouble thanks to his constancy in clumsiness.