dead in the water

English as a Second Language English Teacher Explanations (ESL Tests)
1

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #330 [color=blue]“English Slang Idioms (51)”, question 8

“I don’t think I should go out drinking with you guys during the week anymore. It’s only 11 a.m., and I’m already dead in the …,” Maxine told her friends.

(a) saddle
(b) bucket
(c) water
(d) pot

English Language Tests, Intermediate level

ESL/EFL Test #330 [color=blue]“English Slang Idioms (51)”, answer 8

“I don’t think I should go out drinking with you guys during the week anymore. It’s only 11 a.m., and I’m already dead in the water,” Maxine told her friends.

Correct answer: (c) water
[size=200]_________________________[/size]

It’s only 11 a.m., and I’m already dead in the water.

Means: He doesn’t go anywhere because the water is dead.Probably there is no wind that is impossible to go sailing.

2

To be ‘dead in the water’ means to be unable to function or to move or to make progress.

In this question, Maxine is unable to think/move well because she has been out drinking and is either drunk or tired or both.

3

Hi BZ,

Are you always working? I’ am sorry to trouble you but I have to show you from where I got my answer. But I say the yours is the best.

phrases.org.uk/bulletin_boar … s/856.html
usingenglish.com/reference/i … water.html

In the first either they can’t answer or the answer is the water still and the sailboats unable to move but there are similar explanations only the about the boats. But here I understand you not the sailboard which cannot move but the guy because he is hangover.
The second -I think - means what you said, but I didn’t notice yesterday.

Thanks:
Kati

4

The first reference – because the origin was naval and about boats, someone explained the answer with the example of a boat. In one of the later posts on that thread, someone says, “A disabled warship is ‘dead in the water’. By extension, anything out of action is too.” In other words they are saying that anything (including people) can be considered ‘dead in the water’ if they are unable to function or to move or to make progress.
The second is more direct, and agrees more clearly with what I said.

5

Yes Bz, I understand the whole. Thanks: Kati