GIVE SOMEONE AN INCH AND THEY’LL TAKE A MILE

We say this of someone who, having accepted a small favour (assistance), becomes greedy and asks for increasingly larger favours.

 Examples:

 “I own a husky and a Labrador, and anyone with a husky will know if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile when it comes to being off the lead.”

 “But give censors an inch and they will take a mile. It would, I predict, be only a matter of time before Britain’s proud history of media freedom and freedom of speech lies in tatters.”

 “Meanwhile, as if to prove the maxim ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile,’ the largest US corporations still turn to the government for subsidies.”


 The phrase also features in Hazel O'Connor’s song, Give Me An Inch, from her 1980 album, Breaking Glass:

 Photo credit: Lauren Manning (Creative Commons)