Ironically, what motivated my question was a French-language textbook. In French, there is an expression "changer d'avis comme de chemise" which would translate to "changing one's mind as often as one's shirt". Is there an equivalent expression or idiom in English?
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1Looking up "changes his mind as often as he changes" and "changes his mind as often as he changes his shirt" shows that the same expression, and variants, are used reasonably commonly in English.– Edwin AshworthCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:08
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For simplicity, there is indecisive, flighty, or space cadet.– Yosef BaskinCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:19
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@YosefBaskin A "space cadet" is a person who is out of touch with reality or whose mind is constantly elsewhere. To me, it does not connote any sense of changing one's mind, so I don't see how it applies here.– Nuclear HoagieCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:29
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One-word answers (eg 'fickle', 'vacillating') here.– Edwin AshworthCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:45
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I've not found any solid references (thus comment instead of answer), but I've heard this characterized as "...spin[s] like a weather-vane".– Jeff ZeitlinCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 18:54
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2 Answers
There are similar expressions. But many are likely to be regional or to come into and then fall out of fashion.
He changes with (or as often as) the weather.
Fickle as the sea. —William Cullen Bryant
Words related to changeable, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/changing:
capricious, changeable, changeful, choppy, fickle, fluid, inconsistent, inconstant, mercurial, mutable, uncertain, unsettled, variable, volatile
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Thank you for this answer. Yes, I have noted connotations to weather as used to characterize mood, but I suppose they can be applied to opinion, as well.– BobCommented Apr 13, 2020 at 19:25
The adjective phrase "fickle-minded" means "inconstant", 'prone to frequent changes" (ref.). The expression "to be fickle-minded" is therefore one possibility.
