squeaky

proverb The person complaining or protesting the loudest or most frequently is the one who will receive the most attention from others. My sister makes a point of writing letters of complaint to businesses whenever she has an issue with their service, and nine times out of ten, she's rewarded with some kind of discount or gift. I guess it's true, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

proverb The person complaining or protesting the loudest or most frequently is the one who will receive the most attention from others. My sister makes a point of writing letters of complaint to businesses whenever she has an issue with their service, and nine times out of ten, she's rewarded with some kind of discount or gift. I guess it's true, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Prov. People who complain the most will get attention or what they want. If you don't get good service at the hotel, make sure to tell the manager that you're dissatisfied. The squeaking wheel gets the oil.

The loudest complaints get the most attention, as in No matter what table they give her, Helen generally insists on a better one and gets it-the squeaky wheel gets the grease . The current version of this idiom, with its allusion to a wagon wheel that needs oiling, is ascribed to American humorist Josh Billings (1818-1885) in a poem, "The Kicker": "I hate to be a kicker [complainer], I always long for peace, But the wheel that does the squeaking Is the one that gets the grease." However, the idea of the idiom is much older. A manuscript from about 1400 had: "Ever the worst spoke of the cart creaks." Similar sayings were repeated over the succeeding centuries.

COMMON If someone is squeaky clean, they live a very good life and never seem to do anything bad or illegal. Of all boy bands, they had the most wholesome and squeaky clean image. As a country-dweller myself, I can truthfully say that not all people living in the countryside are as squeaky clean as they like to think. Note: You can also use squeaky-clean before a noun. Claudia's squeaky-clean image makes her the perfect children's television presenter. Neither singer has a squeaky-clean reputation. Note: This expression is often used to suggest that this way of life is unnatural or uninteresting, or that someone is not as good as they seem. Note: Clean surfaces sometimes squeak when you wipe or rub them.

People say the squeaky wheel gets the grease to mean that people who complain loudly get attention. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Council is listening to the small minority of people who scream loudest.

The loudest complainer usually obtains the most attention. This allusion to a wagon wheel that needs lubrication appears in a nineteenth-century poem attributed to the American humorist Josh Billings. Entitled “The Kicker” (i.e., The Complainer), it goes, “I hate to be a kicker, I always long for peace, But the wheel that does the squeaking is the one that gets the grease.” However, this idea had been similarly expressed in various early proverb collections. “He who greases his Wheels, helps his Oxen” occurs in Thomas Fuller’s collection (1732), and “A wheel badly greased creaks” in Alfred Henderson’s (1830).