Nelly Min

Reader's question: If you wish, when you do the cloning, you can watch the transfer process as it happens. Or you can watch paint dry. We elected to come back after it finished. Could you explain “to watch paint dry”?

My comment:

If you say that watching an activity is like watching paint dry, you mean that it is very boring. To me, watching golf on television is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

You can use this expression to say no. Example: Do you want to go see the movie ‘Confucius’? I’d rather watch paint dry.

That means you find the idea of watching that movie so boring that you would prefer to watch paint dry.

Related stories:

What's the catch?

Marriage material

Nuts and bolts

Across the board

Be in someone’s shoes

In that vein

The devil you know…

Right out of the gate

Leap-frog

Up the ante

loose ends

Nose-bleed section

Off the rails

Keeping up with the Jones's

Benefits package

Closed-door talk

March Madness

On-again,off-again

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily website.