See rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic meaning in English (4.1kB)
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{
"ref": "1969 January 17, Nan C. Robertson, quoting Elizabeth Carpenter, “White House Memories Recalled By Mrs. Johnson's Press Aide”, in New York Times, page 18",
"text": "All the new people want an office close to the President's. You should see them scramble. It's like fighting for a deck chair on the Titanic.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1972 May 15, Joseph Eger, “Listening to the Vibes”, in New York Times, page 34",
"text": "Administrators are running around straightening out deck chairs while the Titanic goes down.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1976 May 16, Rogers Morton, quotee, Washington Post",
"text": "I'm not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 July 24, Business Online",
"text": "Gordon Brown's decision to redefine Britain's economic cycle has been damned by one of the City's most influential economic forecasters, which accuses the Chancellor of the Exchequer of doing little more than \"moving the deckchairs on the Titanic\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006 April 29, Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Washington, D.C.",
"text": "\"And then you write, ‘Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.’ First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!\"",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "2023 November 14, Marina Hyde, “Rewarding failure? With David Cameron’s return, it’s being celebrated like never before”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Inevitably, people have suggested that pulling a move to restore Cameron to the frontline is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but arguably that doesn’t really cover it.",
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],
"glosses": [
"To do something pointless or insignificant that will soon be overtaken by events, or that contributes nothing to the solution of a current problem."
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"(idiomatic) To do something pointless or insignificant that will soon be overtaken by events, or that contributes nothing to the solution of a current problem."
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"related": [
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"word": "fiddle while Rome burns"
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"synonyms": [
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"word": "move the deckchairs on the Titanic"
},
{
"word": "shift the deckchairs on the Titanic"
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{
"word": "shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic"
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"ref": "1969 January 17, Nan C. Robertson, quoting Elizabeth Carpenter, “White House Memories Recalled By Mrs. Johnson's Press Aide”, in New York Times, page 18",
"text": "All the new people want an office close to the President's. You should see them scramble. It's like fighting for a deck chair on the Titanic.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1972 May 15, Joseph Eger, “Listening to the Vibes”, in New York Times, page 34",
"text": "Administrators are running around straightening out deck chairs while the Titanic goes down.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1976 May 16, Rogers Morton, quotee, Washington Post",
"text": "I'm not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 July 24, Business Online",
"text": "Gordon Brown's decision to redefine Britain's economic cycle has been damned by one of the City's most influential economic forecasters, which accuses the Chancellor of the Exchequer of doing little more than \"moving the deckchairs on the Titanic\".",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2006 April 29, Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Washington, D.C.",
"text": "\"And then you write, ‘Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.’ First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!\"",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 November 14, Marina Hyde, “Rewarding failure? With David Cameron’s return, it’s being celebrated like never before”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
"text": "Inevitably, people have suggested that pulling a move to restore Cameron to the frontline is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but arguably that doesn’t really cover it.",
"type": "quotation"
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"(idiomatic) To do something pointless or insignificant that will soon be overtaken by events, or that contributes nothing to the solution of a current problem."
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "move the deckchairs on the Titanic"
},
{
"word": "shift the deckchairs on the Titanic"
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"word": "shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.
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