"couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" meaning in English

See couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: EN-AU ck1 couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg [Australia], En-au-couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Presents an example of a minimally simple project that the person or group described is presumed unable to accomplish. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery
  1. (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang, idiomatic) Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent. Tags: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, idiomatic, slang, vulgar Synonyms: couldn't organise a two-ticket raffle, couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel, couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery, couldn't pour water out of a boot Related terms: way out of a paper bag, way to run a railroad, whelk stall

Download JSON data for couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Presents an example of a minimally simple project that the person or group described is presumed unable to accomplish.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Australian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
          "parents": [
            "Negative polarity items",
            "Terms by semantic function"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "New Zealand English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006, G. C. Lemans, Chantier: A tribute to the world's engineers and their partners in life, page 60",
          "text": "“Deladrieux should have stayed an accountant,” Murphy sighed. “He's got three people working for him but they're just administrative clerks, pencil-pushers, they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. That's what you get when you assign engineering jobs to non-engineers.[…]”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent."
      ],
      "id": "en-couldn't_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery-en-phrase-OMMDpwWH",
      "links": [
        [
          "incompetent",
          "incompetent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang, idiomatic) Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "way out of a paper bag"
        },
        {
          "word": "way to run a railroad"
        },
        {
          "word": "whelk stall"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "couldn't organise a two-ticket raffle"
        },
        {
          "word": "couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel"
        },
        {
          "word": "couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery"
        },
        {
          "word": "couldn't pour water out of a boot"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia",
        "Ireland",
        "New-Zealand",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "slang",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "EN-AU ck1 couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/ff/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/54/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AUS)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Presents an example of a minimally simple project that the person or group described is presumed unable to accomplish.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "way out of a paper bag"
    },
    {
      "word": "way to run a railroad"
    },
    {
      "word": "whelk stall"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Australian English",
        "British English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English negative polarity items",
        "English phrases",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English vulgarities",
        "Irish English",
        "New Zealand English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006, G. C. Lemans, Chantier: A tribute to the world's engineers and their partners in life, page 60",
          "text": "“Deladrieux should have stayed an accountant,” Murphy sighed. “He's got three people working for him but they're just administrative clerks, pencil-pushers, they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. That's what you get when you assign engineering jobs to non-engineers.[…]”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "incompetent",
          "incompetent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang, idiomatic) Is unable even to organise a project that requires no planning; is incompetent."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia",
        "Ireland",
        "New-Zealand",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "slang",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "EN-AU ck1 couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/ff/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/EN-AU_ck1_couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/54/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/En-au-couldn%27t_organise_a_piss-up_in_a_brewery.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AUS)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "couldn't organise a two-ticket raffle"
    },
    {
      "word": "couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel"
    },
    {
      "word": "couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery"
    },
    {
      "word": "couldn't pour water out of a boot"
    }
  ],
  "word": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.