Learn English – English equivalent for the Persian idiom “Putting the drill on poppy”

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There is an old saying in Persian that describes a situation in which:

  • Someone is going into too much (unnecessary) detail while doing something.

  • Someone does something with too much (unnecessary) obsession.

The literal translation of the saying is:

Putting the drill on poppy.

I should add, this idiom is used in a negative manner. That means if you use this idiom for a situation, then you're probably annoyed by it. For example if you say: John is putting the drill on poppy, it could never be a compliment, you mean it as a negative thing (because it's too much) and you're annoyed by it.

For instance,
suppose your car has just been crashed and you're running low on money. So you go to the auto repair shop and you ask the mechanic to fix your car but you don't want him to go into too much detail; You want him to fix your car with minimal cost. Here is the conversation:

Mechanic: Do you want to repair your car?

You: Yes, but please don't put the drill on poppy.

I tried searching about the origin of this old idiom and why they used drill and poppy plant in it but couldn't find any useful information. I asked a few of my older friends and they didn't know either. I'm still looking for an explanation but I suspect it has something to do with harvesting poppy plant and maybe the amount of detail it takes to extract seeds from it (maybe with an instrument like drill).

Is there any equivalent English idiom/expression to imply this meaning?

Update:

In case the words in the literal translation are not clear, I'm going to add what they're referring to here:

  • Drill is referring to a tool with a rotating cutting tip, used for making holes. (From google translate)

  • Poppy is referring to a herbaceous plant with showy flowers, milky sap, and rounded seed capsules. Many poppies contain alkaloids and are a source of drugs such as morphine and codeine. (From google translate)

Best Answer

In (British) English, a painlessly idiomatic usage would be

Mechanic: Do you want to repair your car?

You: Yes, but please don’t go overboard.

As thefreedictionary points out, ‘go overboard’ literally means falling out of a boat, but idiomatically one can also go overboard on a task: ‘to do too much; to be extravagant’.

That can mean a range of things, from taking a task in general more seriously than it could possibly merit, to polishing thousands of tiny details that no-one could possibly ever see.

In the case of your example, the not going overboard scenario would involve the mechanic simply fixing the essential problem efficiently, and stopping there.

John’s colleagues would understand each other perfectly if one of them were simply to say, ‘John is going overboard again.’ They might or might not try to stop him, but they would understand that John is expending unnecessary time and effort, as usual.

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