tweedledee

tweedledee and tweedledum

Any two people very similar in appearance, manner, or behavior, especially those who are or act particularly oafish or foolish. A reference to the names of two fictional twins in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. It's a wonder we have any nice things at all with tweedledee and tweedledum over there running around the house knocking into everything. Most of the world sees our two countries as tweedledee and tweedledum, but we generally hate being lumped in with our boorish neighbors to the south.
See also: and, tweedledee, tweedledum
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

tweedledum and tweedledee

Two matters, persons, or groups that are very much alike, as in Bob says he's not voting in this election because the candidates are tweedledum and tweedledee . This term was invented by John Byrom, who in 1725 made fun of two quarreling composers, Handel and Bononcini, and said there was little difference between their music, since one went "tweedledum" and the other "tweedledee." The term gained further currency when Lewis Carroll used it for two fat little men in Through the Looking-Glass (1872). For a synonym, see six of one, half dozen of the other.
See also: and, tweedledee, tweedledum
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

tweedledum and tweedledee

Not much difference between these alternatives; same as six of one and half a dozen of the other. These actually were two names invented by John Byrom, who was satirizing two quarreling schools of musicians. Byrom (and others) claimed there was not much difference between Handel and Bononcini—one’s music went “tweedledum” and the other’s “tweedledee”—and wrote an amusing verse to this effect for the London Journal (June 1725). Lewis Carroll’s use of the names for two fat little men in his Through the Looking-Glass (1872) helped the term to survive.
See also: and, tweedledee, tweedledum
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • tweedledee and tweedledum
  • tweedledum
  • tweedledum and tweedledee
  • numbnuts
  • lardhead
  • musclehead
  • meathead
  • a fool and his money are soon parted
  • fool and his money are soon parted, a
  • parted
References in periodicals archive
Like many of the characters Alice encounters in both Wonderland and in Looking-Glass Land, Tweedledum and Tweedledee aggressively (at times even hostilely) subvert her perceptions and understanding of the world, constructing through their elaborate verbal nonsense and absurd actions a "contrariwise" mode of existence that Alice instinctively distrusts but cannot penetrate.
Introduction: "If you think we're alive, you ought to speak"
Arguing that Bush and Gore are Tweedledum and Tweedledee is to be willfully ignorant.
It's the ideology, stupid
Anyone who thinks that Gore and Bush are Tweedledum and Tweedledee is not living in the real world.
A Week in June
At the opposite end of the cavernous space, a chubbily misshapen and slightly sinister-looking businessman, made of the same material, was sitting on a swing like some pendulous Tweedledee. On the walls were three computer-aided drawings, two depicting similar businessmen fused together, the other featuring an Escher-like spiral staircase.
ROLAND BRENER
Windows and the Macintosh are to me Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There are so many possible GUIs, and we're stuck with the one from PARC, which I like to call the PUI." In spite of these caveats, and in spite of the repeated snide reference to Microsoft Corp which, for all its faults, has done a great deal to make personal computing accessible and pervasive, the participants ended the day with nothing but praise for Engelbart and his work.
ENGELBART'S REVOLUTION IS STILL NOT FINISHED
In this respect, Britain's confrontation between Tweedledum and Tweedledee will be of no help.
Eurogamble
Through the Looking Glass shows us that an object which is intended may differ from the object as intended: Alice sees the same house ambiguously signed both as 'the house of Tweedledum' and as 'the house of Tweedledee'.
Chaucerian Realism
The Greens, Nader says, will "provide an answer to the assertion--due to the Tweedledee and Tweedledum two-party duopoly--that millions of Americans have nowhere to go.
A little green: shaky start for the Nader campaign
Republicans and Democrats were identical partners--"Tweedledum and Tweedledee," he called them--"seizing control" of local schools, businesses, and courts to carry out the integrationist agenda.
The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics
Tweedledum and Tweedledee Fictional characters in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two odd, fat, little men.
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There
On her trip to the eighth square, where she at last becomes a queen, Alice meets talking flowers, looking - glass insects, a man in a white paper suit, such nursery - rhyme characters as Humpty Dumpty and the Lion and the Unicorn, and many others, including Tweedledum and Tweedledee and the White Knight.
Through the Looking Glass
ALONG with brother Eric, Donald Trump Jnr makes up the US's answer to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
TweedleDon just hasn't got art of the book deal
On a whirlwind adventure, courageous Alice meets the argumentative Tweedledee and Tweedledum, joins the Mad Hatter's chaotic tea party and dashes from the Jabberwocky's claws that catch.
48 hours Your next North EastHot List
I also put pearls around each of the tiers to represent the chapter with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Tweedledee told Alice the story of the walrus and the carpenter in which the they ate all of the oysters.
This project was something entirely new to me