turkeys voting for Christmas
- idiom
- UK
:
pavos votando por Navidad
- Approving those changes would be turkeys voting for Christmas for the staff.
It is very much turkeys voting for Christmas.
- It is very much turkeys voting for Christmas.
- But the celebs Jews, like turkeys voting for Christmas are sadly among them, are not the ones who have to live with what they imported.
Examples
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He argued that accepting lower wages was just turkeys voting for Christmas.
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It's like turkeys voting for Christmas to support that policy!
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They were like turkeys voting for Christmas when they supported those cuts to their own department.
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Many people believe that turkeys voting for Christmas is a perfect analogy for the election.
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The employees felt like turkeys voting for Christmas when they agreed to give up their bonuses for the company's 'better future'.
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Promising to cut spending during a recession feels like turkeys voting for Christmas to the struggling citizens.
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Supporting a candidate who wants to dismantle social benefits is like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Synonyms
To support a decision that will hurt you or your group
Surface Forms
Morphology
turkey + vote + for + Christmas
The idiom relies on cultural/world knowledge (that turkeys are traditionally eaten at Christmas) and uses a metaphorical scenario to signal self-defeating behaviour; this link is not obvious from the literal meanings of 'turkey', 'vote', 'for' and 'Christmas' alone. An average B1 learner who only knows the constituent words is unlikely to infer the intended notion of acting against one's own interest without prior exposure, so the expression is best classified as opaque.
Etymology
Turkeys voting for Christmas comes from the image of turkeys voting for Christmas, the very day they are often killed for dinner. That's why the phrase describes a choice that is 'against their own interest'.
