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to cook one's/one's own goose

cook [someone’s/one's own] goose.
To destroy someone’s chances totally and irrevocably; to do someone in or ruin it for someone; to put the kibosh on someone’s hopes or plans. The popular and amusing but implausible story offered as the source of this phrase has to do with King Eric of Sweden and his soldiers, who were not taken seriously when they arrived to capture a town. The townspeople ridiculed the King by hanging out a goose for the soldiers to shoot at. Upon realizing the real threat posed by the King, the people sent someone to negotiate a settlement with him. When asked his intentions, the King replied, “to cook your goose.”
The OED cites a mid-19th-century street ballad as the earliest printed use of the phrase:

If they come here we’ll cook their goose
The Pope and Cardinal Wiseman.

This doggerel expressed England’s opposition to Pope Pius’s attempt to reassert the power of the Roman Catholic Church in England through the appointment of the English Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman.:clap:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Thwarting
 
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nickel

Administrator
Staff member
Bump. Είναι πολλά που μπορεί να βάλει κανείς σε κάθε περίπτωση. Π.χ.

I’ve got enough on you to cook your goose. Μπορώ να σου κλείσω το σπίτι μ' αυτά που ξέρω για σένα.
 
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