| 释义 |
save your breath save (one's) breathTo spare the effort of saying something, doing something, or making an appeal that will be futile. Save your breath, Tom. There's no way they'll agree to the deal. I was going to complain to the phone company about the extra charges, but I decided to save my breath.See also: breath, savesave your breath If you tell someone to save their breath, you mean that they should not bother saying something, because you will not agree to it or you do not want to hear it. `If you're going to tell me about the extra week you want to spend in New York, you can save your breath,' she said.See also: breath, savesave your breath not bother to say something because it is pointless.See also: breath, savesave your ˈbreath (spoken) do not waste your time speaking to somebody because they will not listen to your comments, advice, suggestions, etc: Save your breath. He never listens to anybody.This phrase comes from a longer saying: ‘save your breath to cool your porridge’.See also: breath, savesave your breathDon’t bother to tell me about it. The image of expending one’s breath to utter what no one wants to hear dates from the sixteenth century. In early English parlance it often was to keep one’s breath (or wind) to cool one’s pottage/porridge/broth (by blowing on it). Jonathan Swift (Polite Conversation, 1738) wrote, “Pray keep your breath to cool your porridge.” Today the food-cooling phrase is obsolete, but the first portion survives as a cliché. See also waste one's breath. See also: breath, save |