move the goal posts

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English

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Verb

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move the goal posts (third-person singular simple present moves the goal posts, present participle moving the goal posts, simple past and past participle moved the goal posts)

  1. Alternative form of move the goalposts.
    • 2003 January 14, Peter G[osselin] Fitzgerald, “Statement of Hon. Peter G. Fitzgerald, U.S. Senator from Illinois”, in Competition in the Telecommunications Industry: Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, First Session, Washington, D.C.: Printed for use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; U.S. Government Printing Office, published 2006, →ISBN, page 85:
      Sooner or later we have to have rules, and we have to know that they are not going to change, for people to have business plans developed and so that they can go out and raise capital and stick with their business model. But if there is this constant uncertainty that when the Commission changes, or when they have another rule tha they are going to move the goal posts again, nobody is going to want to have anything to do with this field.