"when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp" meaning in English

See when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp, {{en-proverb}} when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp
  1. It is easy to lose sight of one's initial objective, becoming caught up in subtasks or in tasks only tangentially related to the original goal. Related terms: yak shaving, bikeshedding, XY problem, if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging
    Sense id: en-when_you're_up_to_your_neck_in_alligators,_it's_hard_to_remember_that_your_initial_objective_was_to_drain_the_swamp-en-proverb-OsMBUGWR Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs

Download JSON data for when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "For quotations using this term, see Citations:when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is easy to lose sight of one's initial objective, becoming caught up in subtasks or in tasks only tangentially related to the original goal."
      ],
      "id": "en-when_you're_up_to_your_neck_in_alligators,_it's_hard_to_remember_that_your_initial_objective_was_to_drain_the_swamp-en-proverb-OsMBUGWR",
      "links": [
        [
          "objective",
          "objective"
        ],
        [
          "subtask",
          "subtask"
        ],
        [
          "tangentially",
          "tangentially"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "yak shaving"
        },
        {
          "word": "bikeshedding"
        },
        {
          "word": "XY problem"
        },
        {
          "word": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "yak shaving"
    },
    {
      "word": "bikeshedding"
    },
    {
      "word": "XY problem"
    },
    {
      "word": "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "For quotations using this term, see Citations:when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is easy to lose sight of one's initial objective, becoming caught up in subtasks or in tasks only tangentially related to the original goal."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "objective",
          "objective"
        ],
        [
          "subtask",
          "subtask"
        ],
        [
          "tangentially",
          "tangentially"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). 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.