rock the boat
Appearance
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]rock the boat (third-person singular simple present rocks the boat, present participle rocking the boat, simple past and past participle rocked the boat)
- (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
[edit]- make waves; see also Thesaurus:nonconform
Translations
[edit]disturb the status quo
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