three stops short of Dagenham
- idiom
- Offensive
:
no tener dos dedos de frente
- He's a bit three stops short of Dagenham when it comes to making decisions.
Examples
-
I can't believe she said that; she's definitely three stops short of Dagenham!
-
That theory is three stops short of Dagenham if you ask me.
-
People who believe those rumors are three stops short of Dagenham.
-
Some say the new manager is three stops short of Dagenham with his latest changes.
-
He made a ridiculous suggestion at the meeting; I think he's three stops short of Dagenham.
-
After hearing his nonsensical explanation, I realized he's three stops short of Dagenham.
-
I often wonder if she’s three stops short of Dagenham based on her odd behavior.
Synonyms
138
8.1
Not smart or quick to understand
18
5.8
Silly in a way that is slightly funny
16
7.1
Not very intelligent and too naive about complex things
10
4.7
A person who has little experience of the world and seems naive
6
5.6
Not quick to understand or learn
6
5.3
Not very smart and slow to understand things
1
9.9
A person who is not very smart or sensible
1
9.9
Someone who is not smart and slow to understand
1
9.3
Not very smart and acting in a foolish way
1
7.9
Being very foolish and showing poor judgment
Very foolish and often making bad choices
A person who is foolish and lacks common sense
Slow to understand things and often acting foolishly
Being very foolish and clumsy in how someone thinks or acts
Antonyms
How Sensible
Surface Forms
Morphology
three + stop + short + of + Dagenham
The idiomatic sense 'lacking common sense' is not transparently built from 'three' + 'stops' + 'short' + 'of' + 'Dagenham' — it relies on a culturally specific, jocular reference to a place-name and a figurative notion of being 'not all the way there'. Because the meaning depends on regional knowledge and lexicalized phrasing rather than standard compositional rules, a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would very likely not infer the intended sense.
Etymology
Three stops short of Dagenham may come from the image of a train that stops three stops before Dagenham, so it never reaches the final station. One popular story says people used that picture to talk about someone who is not thinking clearly, so the phrase means 'lacking common sense' or 'not quite sensible'.