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Reader question: Please explain “a dime a dozen” in this - Theories on the cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster are a dime a dozen. My comments: This means that theories on the cause of the disaster are many and numerous. This also suggests that the theories may not all be valuable (plausible). “A dime a dozen” is an American idiom. Dime is 10 cents. A dozen is 12 in number. The Chinese equivalent will be yi mao yi da (一毛一打). Eggs, for instance, used to cost about yi mao yi da. A long time ago to be sure, but yi mao yi da suggests that commodity prices used to be very low. Figuratively speaking also, if something costs a dime a dozen, it’s cheap, hence the connotation that academic theories that are a dime a dozen may not be worth your while to read. I went to the military history museum Sunday to see a calligraphy show in memory of the 1911 Revolution and while there and on the way to and fro, I observed quite a few things that you might want to term “a dime a dozen”. First of all, the crowds are certainly a dime a dozen. They’re everywhere crowding the street, the subway and every hall of the museum, stairway, elevator and toilet. I heard one local lamenting: “Tourists are everywhere!” Yes, tourists are a dime a dozen, too. A sign of the time, you might say, everyone is so restless (bored, too, perhaps) in their home place that they have to go elsewhere. Residents of Hangzhou, for instance, have to go visit other cities for holiday because their own beautiful city is fully occupied by folks from other places. | 
