Some Interesting Eglish Idioms

Too many cooks in the kitchen

Suppose you are cooking meals in the kitchen,say soup.Some friends come in to help you,you hope them come to pass cookers to you or clean the table,but they seems have their own opinion on your soup. Someone tasted the soup and say salt is not enough,someone think you should add more pepper, someone want to pour some vinegar cause she likes it. Well,if you listen to them ,you might end up with a pot of hot mess witch makes you upset. What caused the problem, too many cooks.Everyone in the kitchen have their own say and no one is really in charge.
So the idiom describes a problem that If too many people help to complete a task, it may not goes well, even could fail it. A team leader is necessary to give decisions and orders to get jobs done quickly. Sometimes we simply say too many cooks to express the same meaning.

A fly on the wall

Fly is alway around us, whatever you are doing , it could happen that a fly is watching you on the wall, and you don’t notice that. A person who is a fly on the wall is someone who is a bystander, observes a situation without being noticed.This expression is commonly used to refer a conversation that is kind of secret. It could be a spy hide behind the wall, listen to what you are talking about.

to take to sth like a duck to water

Ducks love water,you can often see them floating freely on the surface of water, they also mate and lay eggs near water. Ducks can swim effortlessly in all kinds of water, they are water experts and really know water. So if you are really good at something without even trying very hard, or you are born for this and it’s not a struggle for you at all ,which means you take to this like a duck to water.

like water off a duck’s back

This expression comes from the fact that duck feathers are waterproof. They let water run off a duck’s body. The feathers are perfectly designed because the birds spend so much time in the water. In English, we use this saying when talking about something that has happened to someone, but the person doesn’t seem to care. They are not bothered at all. You can say someone who is very optimistic about life, bad things never bother him, like water off a duck’s back.

to ruffle someone’s feathers

This is the opposite of last expression. This means the person is really unhappy about something, just as ducks would be if you ruffled, or messed up, their waterproof feathers. So, we’d better not ruffle someone’s feathers to prevent troubles.

caught with hand in the cookie jar

This expression means discovering someone doing something wrong or forbidden, and catch him in the act. We often use it for stealing , but not just a little sweet. The “cookie” in this expression can mean any resource that someone has secretly and dishonestly taken.
A more descriptive expression for this is to catch someone red-handed.we use this expression for just about any situation when someone got caught lying or cheating.