NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 26 of 150

Correct — A, Complaining about a loss in the past. To cry over spilt milk is to fret about something unfortunate that has already happened and can no longer be changed. The milk is on the floor before the crying starts, so the phrase always looks backwards at a loss already suffered, which is exactly what option (a) says.

• (b)Too much inquisitive about something — This describes nosiness, and nothing carries regret, not curiosity. The option is printed just so in the paper, with 'too much inquisitive' where ordinary English would say 'too inquisitive'.
• (c)When something is done badly to save money — That is the sense of false economy, as in 'penny wise, pound foolish'. Spilling milk is an accident, not a decision to cut costs.
• (d)Dealing with a problem only in an emergency situation — That looks forward to trouble still to come, which is the sense of 'cross that bridge when you come to it'. The milk idiom is about trouble already behind you.

An idiom item on the proverb 'it is no use crying over spilt milk', which names pointless regret for a loss that cannot be undone.

The quickest route to the answer is the time the phrase points to. The milk has already been spilt, so whatever the idiom means must sit in the past, and only one option describes something that has already happened. The other three describe curiosity, false economy and last-minute firefighting, none of which is a past loss.

• Wiktionary defines the phrase as 'to worry about unfortunate events which have already happened and which cannot be changed'.
• It is nearly always used as advice, in the negative — 'don't cry over spilt milk' or 'there's no point crying over spilt milk'.
• The earliest quotation given for it is Jonathan Swift in 1738 — 'Tis a Folly to cry for spilt Milk.'
• 'Spilt' and 'spilled' are both correct past forms; British writing favours 'spilt' in this phrase, American writing 'spilled'.

• Choosing an option that describes a sensible-sounding fault, such as false economy, when the fault the idiom names is simply pointless regret.
• Reading the phrase literally as an act of weeping rather than as a comment on wasted feeling.

Asked as an idiom item where the correct option paraphrases the proverb and the wrong options give the meanings of unrelated idioms.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the meaning of the phrase — <u>let bygones be bygones</u>

  • (a)to forget past quarrels and start afresh
  • (b)to keep a record of past events
  • (c)to repeat an old mistake
  • (d)to leave a place quietly

  Answer(a) to forget past quarrels and start afresh.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Choose the meaning of the phrase — <u>what is done cannot be undone</u>

  • (a)hard work always pays
  • (b)a finished action cannot be reversed
  • (c)one should finish what one begins
  • (d)a promise must be kept

  Answer(b) a finished action cannot be reversed.