滥竽充数

Pronunciation: làn yú chōng shù Literal meaning: Fake yu player fills the count

Origin & Usage

Han Feizi records that King Xuan of Qi loved to hear the yu (竽), a reed mouth organ, played by an ensemble of three hundred at once. A man known as Mr. Nanguo, who could not play a note, asked to join and drew the same generous salary as everyone else, his silence covered by the sound around him. When King Xuan died, his son King Min preferred to hear the players one at a time, and Nanguo fled before his turn came. The idiom names the fraud rather than the instrument: 滥 is to pass something off, 竽 is the pipe, and 充数 is to make up the required number. Anyone occupying a place they cannot fill; and people who feel out of their depth in accomplished company use it of themselves.

Examples

English: "He never spoke up in a single meeting yet shared fully in the team's bonus"

Chinese: 他在会上从未发过言，却照样分到了团队的奖金