Herding cats

难控制的局面

Herd作为动词是“放牧”，cats就是“猫”。Herding cats字面解释就是“放养一群猫”。这是什么意思呢？请看对话：

A: How was the exhibition you guys organized last week?

B: It's reported as a "big success" in local papers, but in fact we were exhausted and ran into many difficulties. For one thing, managing volunteers from fourteen different organizations is like herding cats.

A: Herding cats?

B: The idiom refers to an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrolable or chaotic. It implies a task that is extremely difficult or impossible to do, primarily due to chaotic factors.

A: That makes sense. Cats are independent creatures that enjoy to be alone rather than in a group. Any idea who invented the phrase in the first place?

B: Well. People disagree about its origin, but the idiom was first used in the 1980s to describe the task of managing computer programmers.

记住了吗？Herding cats就是"难控制的局面"。