Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is proverbs 160. The proverb today is to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. Sometimes you can actually hear it is just to kill the goose that laid the golden egg too. So you can either hear egg as singular or plural. All right. Let's continue here. Let's look at the note. If someone kills the goose that lays the golden eggs, he or she ruins or destroys something that is profitable or brings wealth, often by doing something stupid or by being too greedy. It is often used as a warning. Like don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Sometimes we actually say it that way. Kind of as a warning to someone thinking that they might be doing something that could really harm or damage their business or their wealth. Okay. Let's continue. The origin of this proverb comes directly from an Aesop fable called "The goose that laid the golden egg. According to the story, the farmer got a goose that laid one golden egg every day. The farmer became impatient with only one golden egg. Yeah. I know think you'd he would be satisfied with a golden egg. Hey that's great. Every day one golden egg. Well, your wealth could grow pretty quick like that way. But anyway and eventually he became overwhelmed with greed. So this is where he made his big mistake. He decided to kill the goose, believing that there would be a treasure trove of eggs inside the goose. He didn't want to wait. After killing the goose he only found the usual internal organs of a goose. So he ended up destroying a good thing that he had. He had a goose that really laid a golden egg supposedly. The moral of the story is don't be stupid or too greedy by destroying your own wealth or something that's bringing you in you know, wealth or a fortune. Okay. Let's take a look at a couple of examples here. That company used to sell its items for reasonable prices. However over the past few years they have raised their prices five times. If they continue to do this they are going to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. That's one of the ways that we may say it, especially if we think a company is doing something stupid that could ruin their real core or the main part of their business, especially when they got a good business already. They've already been successful. All right. Let's look at the second one here. When Apple forced Steve Jobs out of the company over a power struggle with the CEO, they nearly killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. They continued to go down. Yeah. So when he was gone for several years the company got worse and worse their stock went down and down and down. And we're on the verge of bankruptcy when they hired him back. And to save the company basically. He turned around. It was very close, they nearly killed the goose that laid the golden egg. They were very close to doing that. That's what we mean. So when companies do that. When they do stupid things or I don't know. These days a lot of companies sometimes they're doing things for political reasons that end up hurting their bottom line too. There's a number of examples of that. And some people might say that some of them may be you know if they continue along that line, they may kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
B1 US goose golden egg laid wealth stupid English Tutor Nick P Proverbs (160) Kill the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg 30 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/10/13 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary