Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hanygeorge38]

there are some idioms in the following example which ineed your assistance to make it more simple for me to understand


She was very concened about the speeches he was making and dangled carrots in fornt of his nose to try to shut him up.


In this example what does (dangled carrots in fron of his nose as well as to shut him up stand for ?

thanks for your help
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hany

[dduck]

The story goes that donkeys are very stubborn and their owners have great trouble getting them to move. Eventually, they found a solution that worked: dangling a carrot from a stick in front of the donkey. Donkeys not being too smart, see the carrot and start moving towards it. That is, the dangling carrot is being used to motivate the donkey. The same idea can be applied to people, but we don't normally use carrots, perhaps a promotion, a holiday, a nice meal.

[Corey]

Trying to get somebody to do something by offering them something good.
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