Too many cooks spoil the broth

Too many cooks spoil the broth means when many people are involved in the decisionmaking process, bad compromises are the result.
One hump or two? Ha. Ha. Ha. That was supposed to be funny. Yeah, right.

YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast

Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.



English Proverb: Too many cooks spoil the broth

Sometimes, it is better to have a few people working on a project than a lot – too many cooks spoil the broth, as they say.


When too many people are involved in a project, there may be too much negotiation and compromise, and the project will not be done well.


Let’s think about committees for a moment.

A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.

There were too many people involved, too much compromise, and, as we all know, too many cooks spoil the broth.

Quite often, when a committee is in charge of something, it takes a long time to accomplish and, once completed, could have most likely been done better by fewer people.

I’ll use the example of a horse versus a camel.

Horses are beautiful!

They are powerful, reliable and intelligent.

Now, look at a camel.

Have you ever seen such an ugly animal in your life?

Well, a horse was designed by one being.

A camel, however, must have been designed by a committee.

Everyone wanted their design suggestion used.

Therefore, we ended up with a camel, and too many cooks spoil the broth.


This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



Posted

in

by