Flogging a dead horse will not make it do more work...

黑山老妖

Flog/beat a dead horse - 推销没有人感兴趣的东西

For example:
1。 The liberals were trying to flog a dead horse during the question time when they tried to point out that liberals were good economy managers.
自由党在问答时间内想要再次提出自由党是管理经济的好手这个没人关心的事情。
2。 John tried to convince everyone to join the push for reform, but he is just flogging a dead horse.
John想要大家支持改革，但是没人理他。

衍生：
flogging something to death - 不断地重复一个观点、看法，直到大家都对此麻木、不在意了。
for example:
The author of the book has a very interesting idea in the first chapter, but he flogged it to death in the next 10 chapters.
这本书的作者在第一章里提出了一个很有意思的观点，但是在后面的十章里面他不断地重复这同一个观点。太无聊了。。。

steveking

提问：

死马当活马医用英语怎么说？

xingbu

is this one more used in formal writing  again?

黑山老妖

原帖由 xingbu 于 16/9/2008 09:17 发表
is this one more used in formal writing  again?

我最近介绍的都是口语。

神仙老虎狗

fashion victim 盲目追求时尚的牺牲者。

e.g.  I believe that some of female TX from 足迹 are fashion victims.  hahha....（just joking, please ++ to me instead of 拍砖me)

bulaohu

原帖由 steveking 于 2008-9-16 09:07 发表
提问：

死马当活马医用英语怎么说？

好像没有直接对应的，但这个应该很神似了：

It can't get worse anyway, so just do it.