“être dans les choux” is a French saying that literally means “to be in the cabbages.” What it means really, however, is “to fail, to be in a bad situation, to be ranked last or to lose.” An equivalent English expression is “to be up the creek without a paddle.” It comes from the paronymy (the similar pronunciation of two words) between “les choux” (the cabbages) and “échouer” (to fail). The only connection between the two terms is their pronunciation, nothing more. The idiom first appeared in the second half of the 19th century.

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