Cry wolf

    谎报军情

    这个短语的字面解释是“叫狼”，这是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: Mary said she had a terrible headache last night and perhaps needs to see a doctor.

    B: Pay no attention. She's just crying wolf again.

    Note: This means to "raise a false alarm, to ask for assistance when you don't need it, and by extension, to exaggerate or lie." The phrase comes from the Aesop fable, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," in which a young shepherd found it amusing to make villagers think a wolf is attacking his flock. When they came to his rescue, they learned of the false alarm. However, when a wolf actually menaced the flock, the villagers disregarded the shepherd's calls for help, and the wolf ate the flock. The moral: Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed.