Have an ax to grind

    怀有私心

    这个短语的字面解释是“有把斧子要磨”。这是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: What do you think of the strong opposition against our shopping mall project?

    B: After you get the same complaints from a number of people, you begin to think it may not be just people who have personal axes to grind.

    Note: In American English, this idiom means "to have a selfish reason for saying or doing something." This meaning is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's autobiography, first published in 1791, contains an anecdote concerning a man who asked a smith to sharpen his ax especially well and ended up doing the work of turning the grindstone himself. The logic is: Who will turn grindstones? The person who has an ax to grind, of course. For example: The best reporting is done by people who don't have an ax to grind.