a bum steer
1
9.4
- idiom
- Archaic
:
un mal consejo
- After following his friend's suggestion, he realized he had received a bum steer about the best route to take.
- give you a bum steer
Examples
-
You've never given me a bum steer.
-
I think you got a bum steer.
Fiction book (1996) -
- They got me a bum steer.
-
- We gave them a bum steer.
-
You gave us a bum steer.
-
But it's a bum steer, Mike, believe me.
-
I never gave you a bum steer; you could come down in the wrong country too.
-
I wouldn't give you a bum steer.
-
Somebody's been giving you a bum steer.
-
It was a bum steer.
Synonyms
3
7.0
Wrong directions or instructions that make people do the wrong thing
1
9.8
Wrong advice that leads you to make a mistake
1
7.1
Wrong advice or information that makes someone make a bad decision
Antonyms
How Misleading
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents map directly onto the idiom: 'bum' means bad/unsatisfactory and 'steer' (here) means guidance or advice, so 'a bum steer' literally yields 'bad/misleading advice.' The composition is regular and cross-linguistically plausible (bad + direction → poor guidance), so an average B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings should be able to infer the MWE, despite its informal register.
Etymology
A bum steer may come from old cattle talk: a steer is a young ox and a bum is something useless or bad. If a seller gave you a poor animal, you had been given a 'bum steer', a bad deal, so today the phrase means 'bad advice' or 'wrong directions'.