rock the boat

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

rock the boat (third-person singular simple present rocks the boat, present participle rocking the boat, simple past and past participle rocked the boat)

1. (idiomatic) To disturb the status quo or go against rules or conventions, as in an effort to get attention.

   I'd just jump in and fix it, but that's not my job, and I don't want to rock the boat.

   • 1978 August 19, Tim Cwiek, Karen DeCrow, “Interview: Former NOW President DeCrow Talks About Gay Issues”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 5, page 7:

     A lot of gay people I know, female and male, are conservative — perhaps even more conservative than they would be if they were non-gay because they've had such a hard struggle in life, they don't want to rock any boats.

   • 1984, Jim Bouton, Ball Four Plus Ball, page 410:

     Just when I'm asking myself if it's worth it to rock the boat and wondering if I should compromise, something will happen to keep me going. Like one year I got an award from a women's group for, "exposing the jockocratic values of society.

   • 1994, Chris Dodge, quotee, “Slap a Ham Records”, in Chaotic Noise, number 3, Roanoke, Va., page [44]:

     But they're [Rupture] quite the opposite- they're very respectful of other people. They say offensive things to rock the boat and cause some turmoil in the world of safe, homogenized P.C. punk rock.

Synonyms

• make waves; see also Thesaurus:nonconform

Translations

disturb the status quo

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 打破常規／打破常规 (dǎpò chángguī)

• Czech: dělat vlny
• Finnish: keikuttaa venettä
• French: faire des vagues (fr)
• Icelandic: valda truflun (is), valda óróa (is), setja hlutina úr skorðum, stofna málum í hættu, spilla fyrir
• Italian: causare guai
• Russian: раска́чивать ло́дку (ru) impf (raskáčivatʹ lódku)
• Swedish: ställa till trassel, röra om i grytan, (inte) sitta still i båten (not identical)