Help me find an Idiom.
 

my english teacher asked us to find an Idiom that english people use (don't know if its British or American).

The concept of it is about when someone tries to act like a hero, but stupidly. i don't how should i explain it, like when someone tries to do something big, like saving someone's life, but they use a stupid way. They themselves think that they've done it the best way, but actually everone else think its stupid.

sorry i don't know how to explain it, hope you'll understand.

The way I understand "idiom" is that it's an expression or saying that we use that if taken literally doesn't seem to make sense. Something like, "running around like a chicken with his head cut off."

Can a chicken run around without a head? Chickens do have muscle spasms after their heads are cut off, but the saying means to be frantic or unorganized about something.

Becky

I think Arash has got the concept of what an idiom is, but is looking for the actual idiom.

I have no clue, the only one I can think of is 'to make a mountain out of a mole hill', but that doesn't address the heroic nature.


Here are a couple of sites that list a ton of idioms, good luck:

http://www.eslcafe.com/idioms/id-list.html

http://www.idiomsite.com/

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6720/

I didn't quite understand his question the way you did as being about a specific idiom.

Hmm... doing something stupid.... the only thing that comes to mind off hand is "to cut off your nose to spite your face" but that's not really being heroic.






Though the heroic part reminds me of a bad joke I heard:

There were two guys in a mental institution. Bob tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the pool, but Joe jumped in to save him.

When the authorities heard what Joe had done they decided that he should be released for showing such heroism and good sense.

They went to tell him, but they had bad news to deliver at the same time.

"Joe, since you saved Bob from committing suicide, we're going to let you go home. But the bad news is Bob did wind up killing himself, afterall."

"What happened?" Joe asked. "I haven't seen him since I hung him up to dry."