I can't get ahead at my office. Someone has stacked the cards against me. Do you really think that someone has stacked the deck? Isn't it just fate?

My comments:

This is an idiom that originates from playing cards, the deck being a pack of cards. To stack the deck means to shuffle and arrange the cards before dealing them.

To gain an advantage, sometimes a player cheats by arranging the cards in a certain way so that he will make sure of drawing, for example, more aces for himself.

Hence, the dishonest connotation in this phrase. In the above example, the speaker suggests that someone may have "arranged" things behind his back to hurt his chances of promotion.

Either that or "just fate" – a good excuse.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.