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Iclearwater Posted 8 years ago
Vocabulary

A lobster being slowly boiled to death

Science endeavors to reduce the complicated to rationally simple explanatory principles. To complain that this approach to personality is "too mechanistic"—that "we are more than machines," and that "human personality is too deep and intricate to be so easily explained,"—is to stretch out pleasantly in the warm, soothing waters of ignorance, like a lobster being slowly boiled to death.

Hello

There's an expression in my native language, literally it is " Cooking a frog with lukewarm water". This is same meaning as the words in blue.

1) Is the expression in blue common in English?

2) Would it strange, if I replace "lobster" with "frog"?

3) Is there any concise expression about for the same meaning, and native speakers would instantly understand? I mean, is it okay if I just say "boiling a lobster in lukewarm water"?

Thanks!

  

Top answer

Hi It's a common idea in English. I think that 'frog' works better there. If you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump out if can.

— Dave_anon

  • Hi It's a common idea in English.
  • I think that 'frog' works better there.
  • If you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump out if can.
  • If you put it in lukewarm water, it probably won't have that reaction It's a metaphor, I think, for how people react to events: if it's urgent, we react immediately.
  • But there are other situations where we don't respond, not realising what is happening Another way of saying it is 'creep up': - I don't know how I got into such bad debt - it just seemed to creep up on me Dave
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1 Answers
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Hi

It's a common idea in English. I think that 'frog' works better there. If you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump out if can. If you put it in lukewarm water, it probably won't have that reaction

It's a metaphor, I think, for how people react to events: if it's urgent, we react immediately. But there are other situations where we don't respond, not realising what is h

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