Idiom | Pie in the Sky |
---|---|
Example | Consuela thinks that if she goes to Washington, she'll meet the President and tell him her ideas. What a pie-in-the-sky idea! |
Meaning | something not possible; an unrealistic hope |
Origin | In 1906 an American union organizer wrote a song called "The Preacher and the Slave" that had the words: Work and pray, Live on the hay. You'll get pie in the sky when you die! (That's a lie.) "Pie" meant decent working conditions and good wages. Union workers wanted those things while they were alive, not after they died. The song was popular, and the phrase "pie in the sky" came to mean promised pleasures that probably won't come true, or rewards that are given after you die. |
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