blind leading the blind
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.15 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
20
Letters
2
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
phrase
A situation in which an unqualified person is attempting to guide, advise, or train others.
Example Sentences
- "Grandma teaching you to drive is like the blind leading the blind."
- ""The Lord preserve us from evil times. . . . Without his grace, we are the blind leading the blind.""
- ""I have been giving them some good advice." "Good advice!" laughed Janet. "Between you and Jamie Logan, it is the blind leading the blind, and nothing better.""
- "Instructor George Breathitt asked an audience of 300 computer enthusiasts in Louisville, Kentucky, how many seniors in the group would like to teach other seniors about computers. A younger member of the audience quipped disdainfully, "Wouldn't that be the blind leading the blind?""
- "Look, we're as fucked-up as you are. It's like the blind leading the blind."
Etymology
The concept is ancient, found in several cultures. It occurs in the Upanishads, written between 800 BCE and 200 BCE: : Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind. — Katha Upanishad A similar expression exists in the Buddhist Pali Canon, composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 BCE, and in the works of Horace, a leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE), who wrote of caecus caeco dux (“the blind leader of the blind”). The saying also appears in the King James Version of the Bible (1611), Gospel of Matthew, 15:14: : Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Inflected Forms
the blind leading the blind (canonical)