Let sleeping dogs lie

Feifei Hello and welcome to The English We Speak. I’m Feifei.

Neil And I’m Neil. So come on Feifei, you’ve been grumpy all morning - what’s upset you?

Feifei We have a new tea-making rota, and it seems that Rob will be making less tea than me.

Neil Are you sure?

Feifei Yes. Look! Feifei - Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday morning and every other Friday. Rob - just Wednesday morning. This tea-making rota is so unfair. I’m really going to complain about this at the next team meeting. He always has it easy.

Neil Is it that important Feifei? If I were you, I’d let sleeping dogs lie. You could make things worse.

Feifei Let sleeping dogs lie? You mean ‘leave things as they are to avoid causing trouble or restarting an old argument’?

Neil Exactly! We had this argument before and the result was this new tea-making rota. So, just like avoiding waking up a dog and making it angry, let sleeping dogs lie.

Feifei Let’s hear some more examples of this phrase.

Examples I was going to mention the argument we had last night, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Let’s not go over last night’s performance: let sleeping dogs lie and move on.

Don’t remind her about the divorce. Let sleeping dogs lie and talk about something else.

Feifei This is The English We Speak from the BBC and we’re finding out about the phrase ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, meaning to ‘leave a situation as it is and avoid causing trouble or restarting an old problem’. That’s all very well, but it still seems unfair that I’m the one who has to make tea the most.

Neil Come on, Feifei. Can’t you remember why we had a new tea-making rota? It was because Rob makes such awful tea that we wanted him to make less of it!

Feifei Oh, yes! Rob does make awful tea. You’re right Neil, it’s not worth making a fuss - we definitely don’t want Rob to be making our tea too often.

Neil Yes. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Feifei But hold on. I didn’t see your name on the rota. Shouldn’t you be making tea? I thought you were keeping quiet. You never make tea! I’m going to say something about this.

Neil Don’t wake up the sleeping dogs. I’ll go and make some tea now, OK? Bye.

Feifei Bye. And don’t forget, two sugars!