Mauritius· medium· informal
chercher les poux de la poule
“to look for the lice on a chicken”
Meaning
To nitpick and find fault with everything
Explanation
This Mauritian expression ('rod lipou poul' in Creole) describes someone who obsessively picks at small details and looks for problems where there are none.
Example
Arrête de chercher les poux de la poule, le rapport est très bien comme ça.
Stop looking for lice on a chicken, the report is perfectly fine as it is.
Origin
The image of someone painstakingly searching a chicken for lice captures the absurdity of extreme nitpicking. The expression is used across Mauritius in both Creole and French.
Where
Mauritius