Dropping like flies

    纷纷倒下

    这个短语的字面解释是“像苍蝇一样掉落”，这是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: It's cold and it seems winter arrives suddenly.

    B: Isn't that true! several of my colleagues caught a flu this week.

    A: Employees in my company are dropping like flies too.

    Note: This idiom refers to a large number of people either falling ill or dying. The origin of this phrase is unclear, but the expression seems to suggest how fragile these insects are. Flies do, for example, have fragile life spans. In fact, the Center for Insect Science Education Outreach says, "The average life span of a fly in a lab is 26 days for a female, and 33 days for a male." That's pretty short! Indeed, once a fly hatches from their pupal stage, it's not long before they drop dead. The idiom is known from around the turn of the 20th century.