trainwreck in slow motion
- noun
- Informal
:
desastre en cámara lenta
- For weeks, the merger played out as a trainwreck in slow motion, with every meeting worsening the crisis.
Examples
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The response to the crisis was such a trainwreck in slow motion that everyone felt helpless to intervene.
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Her career decline in the tabloids looked like a trainwreck in slow motion to her fans.
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It's a trainwreck in slow motion!
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This is a trainwreck in slow motion.
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The final minutes of the game became a trainwreck in slow motion, with the team making mistake after mistake in front of their fans.
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As the negotiations dragged on, the deal turned into a trainwreck in slow motion, with both parties failing to make progress.
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Watching the politician's speech was like witnessing a trainwreck in slow motion, as he stumbled through his points while the crowd grew increasingly uneasy.
Antonyms
How Disastrous
176
7.0
- Informal
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
148
3.6
∞
1.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
trainwreck + in + slow + motion
The components are largely interpretable: 'trainwreck' (a catastrophic wreck, extended metaphorically to mean a disastrous situation) combined with 'in slow motion' (clearly indicating something happening slowly) yields the sense of a disaster unfolding gradually. Because the noun is a lexicalized metaphor and the whole phrase is figurative rather than strictly compositional, a B1 learner could partly infer the meaning but may not predict the idiomatic, metaphorical use without some exposure.
Etymology
Trainwreck in slow motion comes from the image of a real trainwreck shown in slow motion, so every small mistake and crash is easy to see. That's why it means a 'disaster' that falls apart step by step while people feel they cannot stop it.