"too many chiefs and not enough Indians" meaning in English

See too many chiefs and not enough Indians in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} too many chiefs and not enough Indians
  1. Too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing actual, useful work. Synonyms: too many chiefs and not enough indians Related terms: too many cooks spoil the broth Translations (too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work): trop de chefs (French), pas assez d’indiens (French), muito cacique para pouco índio (Portuguese)
    Sense id: en-too_many_chiefs_and_not_enough_Indians-en-phrase-pQGM6ilw Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for too many chiefs and not enough Indians meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
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      "expansion": "too many chiefs and not enough Indians",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1970 October 24, Frank Lynn, “Goldberg ‘Kennedy Men’ Give State Party Rare Unity”, in New York Times, retrieved 2017-07-15",
          "text": "[V]eterans attribute a lack of money and the consequent need to rely heavily on volunteers in scheduling and the poor advance work for the candidate's appearances. Some Democratic politicians have described the problem as a case of “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 April 14, Janet Street-Porter, “Dazed and confused by modern life”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2017-07-15",
          "text": "Marks & Spencer's . . . top-heavy management has so much in common with the BBC, too many chiefs and not enough indians.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing actual, useful work."
      ],
      "id": "en-too_many_chiefs_and_not_enough_Indians-en-phrase-pQGM6ilw",
      "links": [
        [
          "leader",
          "leader"
        ],
        [
          "manager",
          "manager"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "too many cooks spoil the broth"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "too many chiefs and not enough indians"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
          "word": "trop de chefs"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
          "word": "pas assez d’indiens"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
          "word": "muito cacique para pouco índio"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "too many chiefs and not enough Indians"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "too many chiefs and not enough Indians",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "too many cooks spoil the broth"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1970 October 24, Frank Lynn, “Goldberg ‘Kennedy Men’ Give State Party Rare Unity”, in New York Times, retrieved 2017-07-15",
          "text": "[V]eterans attribute a lack of money and the consequent need to rely heavily on volunteers in scheduling and the poor advance work for the candidate's appearances. Some Democratic politicians have described the problem as a case of “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 April 14, Janet Street-Porter, “Dazed and confused by modern life”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 2017-07-15",
          "text": "Marks & Spencer's . . . top-heavy management has so much in common with the BBC, too many chiefs and not enough indians.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing actual, useful work."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "leader",
          "leader"
        ],
        [
          "manager",
          "manager"
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      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "too many chiefs and not enough indians"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
      "word": "trop de chefs"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
      "word": "pas assez d’indiens"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "too many leaders or managers and not enough people doing useful work",
      "word": "muito cacique para pouco índio"
    }
  ],
  "word": "too many chiefs and not enough Indians"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.