blot one's copy book
Идиома: blot one's copybook / Испачкать тетрадь.
Значение: Испортить репутацию / to spoil one's reputation; to do something that makes other people respect or trust you less; to damage one's own reputation through bad behavior. to damage one's own reputation through bad behavior; to do something which spoils someone's opinion of you.
Примеры: The prime minister blotted his copybook by being involved in the scandal.
I really blotted my copybook by missing the meeting.
She blotted her copybook by arriving late to a meeting.
Происхождение: To blot one’s copybook means to commit some gaffe that spoils one’s record. It’s mainly a British or Commonwealth phrase, though rather old-fashioned. A look at recent examples shows that it has survived almost exclusively in sports journalism. A typical example appeared in the Racing Post on 19 July 2004: “Westender, last year’s Champion Hurdle runner-up, blotted his copybook in dramatic style when refusing at the first fence of the beginners’ chase and catapulting jockey Timmy Murphy to the ground in the process.” Another recent British example, from the Daily Telegraph, shows how it was once more widely used: “At the end of the war, Deedes notes, Muggeridge of MI6 ‘blotted his copybook by befriending PG Wodehouse and his wife’” (Wodehouse had been accused of treachery because he broadcast on German radio during the War). Our schools now don’t have copybooks, or liquid ink that might cause blots, but at one time the image would have been evocative. (источник)
Значение: Испортить репутацию / to spoil one's reputation; to do something that makes other people respect or trust you less; to damage one's own reputation through bad behavior. to damage one's own reputation through bad behavior; to do something which spoils someone's opinion of you.
Примеры: The prime minister blotted his copybook by being involved in the scandal.
I really blotted my copybook by missing the meeting.
She blotted her copybook by arriving late to a meeting.
Происхождение: To blot one’s copybook means to commit some gaffe that spoils one’s record. It’s mainly a British or Commonwealth phrase, though rather old-fashioned. A look at recent examples shows that it has survived almost exclusively in sports journalism. A typical example appeared in the Racing Post on 19 July 2004: “Westender, last year’s Champion Hurdle runner-up, blotted his copybook in dramatic style when refusing at the first fence of the beginners’ chase and catapulting jockey Timmy Murphy to the ground in the process.” Another recent British example, from the Daily Telegraph, shows how it was once more widely used: “At the end of the war, Deedes notes, Muggeridge of MI6 ‘blotted his copybook by befriending PG Wodehouse and his wife’” (Wodehouse had been accused of treachery because he broadcast on German radio during the War). Our schools now don’t have copybooks, or liquid ink that might cause blots, but at one time the image would have been evocative. (источник)