What is single word or phrase/idiom for "someone speaks a lot but works very very slow" for example.... someone said/planned he would do 100 task but actually finished less than 10 task
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I'm looking for an idiom or expression to describe a well-known person/ organization/ politician/ government  whose achievements in a given situation are smaller than what they had claimed or promised to be.  We Iranians have a proverb that literally means      The (roaring) mountain just gave birth to a mouse!    Its  etymology is like this:  Once a volcanic mountain started roaring, hissing, and bursting bubbles. The people were waiting to see what would happen after all those huge roarings and loud booms. Finally, the volcano activity stopped and the people saw just a tiny mouse came out of there! (rather than a monster that was expected to come). So they said mockingly:     "Heh! After all those huge roarings, the (big) mountain just gave birth to a (tiny) mouse!"    Notes:   The (roaring) mountain -symbol for an apparently big(=important) and strong person-here is figured like a woman who is screaming and shouting while is delivering her baby. We use this proverb for mocking an important person/organization/ government, etc ironically when they have used broad advertisements or have spent much money or resources over doing something noticeable, but the result/ achievement is less noticeable than it was claimed or promised to be.   Is there any equivalent for this Persian proverb?  I just found ; would it convey the same connotation?
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Is there an idiom which expresses the idea of "getting a good result from a bad situation or with a bad condition"? Thanks!
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I'm wondering if there's a word, phrase, or idiom to describe the action of deliberately confusing people by using complex sentences. For example, some politicians will throw out some big words and fancy sentences to confuse people what he or she really mean.  In Chinese, we say that the politician is "玩文字遊戲". Direct translation would be "playing a word game". And some English-Chinese dictionaries' suggest "play on word", "play with words", "word play", and "paronomasia". However, upon further researching by Googling, I don't think any of these is correct.
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What is another word for a person who likes to talk too much. I was thinking bigmouth, but bigmouth could mean "somebody who likes carrying messages voluntarily".
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AFAIK the correct grammar for "speak slow" is "speak slowly" (slowly being an adverb). Please correct me if I am mistaken.  But in daily life I have not heard anyone saying "Speak slowlier".  I think I heard folks saying "Speak slower" but I also think it is incorrect.  Which is the best or correct form to convey the message?  Could that be the longish "Speak more slowly?"
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I am trying to think of a non-colloquial word or phrase that means "practice what you preach." I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!
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What is a word to describe "people who can very quickly think what to say". I mean like funny people who have great timing. Is there one exact word for that ability. Not "smart", "canny", "savvy" or "shrewd". Thank you.
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What is the word for act of "demanding for something (many be a toy) repeatedly along with a monotonous sound (not very loudly and not crying)"?  I guess 'whine', 'whimper', or, 'solicit' would not be applicable.  Is that 'nagging'?
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Some people write bloated books and long essays with skilful use of hooks, e.g. Jared Diamond; some others speak in long-drawn sentences with torrents of words, e.g. Noam Chomsky. It reminds me of a tactic politicians use in public discourse to waste people's time. I came across this word before but I can't retrieve it from either memory or the internet.
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I'm looking for a single word to most aptly describe a person possessing the following "qualities":   Appears to be superior in every technology/skill under the sun, which he deems worthy of knowing On being questioned/assigned the task, is found to have only superficial/no knowledge of the said skill. Inherent tendency to "one-up" anyone and everyone - example: "I didn't work hard at all in my undergrad days, but yet I have better/equal grades than you have! "   Could someone help?  Edit: I've got some very good responses, but despite popular opinion for "braggart", I'm going with "pretentious" as it suits what I was looking for more aptly IMHO.
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I remember my English teacher saying that there are only two valid ways to make a one-word sentence:   A question:      Why? Where?  A command:     Go! Stop!    Is this correct?
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It's on the tip of my tongue.  Example: "Replacing the hard drive of this computer would be [idiom]. It's going to fail completely soon enough."
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I am looking for a word to let others understand that somebody is a person who does exactly the opposite of what he speaks. Is there any word for this?
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What one phrase or idiom describes situations (see examples below), in which people funnel their efforts in the wrong direction?       A boy wants to have a cup of coffee, so he buys a notebook in a stationery store and starts writing 100 times on each page "A cup of coffee", hoping that he is going to get a cup of coffee in this way. However, he never bothers to go to the kitchen and see if he can simply prepare coffee for himself in the kitchen...        A band is going to have a concert tomorrow, but they are not ready yet – they still need to rehearse more. So, instead of rehearsing they simply try to re-arrange the chairs on which they are sitting, hoping that the proper arrangement of chairs will ensure their perfect performance on the next day.        A girl wants to learn how to swim. So she reads tons of books about swimming – how to build  swimming pools, biographies of famous swimmers – yet she never even tries swimming by herself...
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In my native language we have lots of ways (some of them very funny) of saying that you, or someone else didn't understand a joke right away. That is, he/she needed some time to figure it out.  I wonder if there's any idiomatic way of expressing that in English.
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Consider the case where a professor is erasing a board and one of the teaching assistant tries to help him by erasing part of the board.   Unfortunately, while trying to pick up the eraser, the teaching assistant bumps into the professor and they both drop their erasers.  An outside observer sees this and says the TA is ______, rather than helping.   The missing word or phrase would capture the good intentions but also express the fact that the intended help had the opposite of the intended effect.  In Mandarin Chinese, the phrase 帮倒忙 comes to mind, but the Google translation "disservice" does not quite capture it.
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Similar to this question:  and   But the word I'm looking for is not limited to vocabulary.  These people often drop words and also random fact tidbits even when it's:   A) obvious to everyone in the room B) it's obvious that he/she just wants to show off the fact that they know it  C) not always founded on knowledge or fact   Also, I'm looking for a word that has a negative connotation.