Expressions: to throw in the towel; to kick up a fuss

I was reading a comic strip, which is tirinhas in Portuguese by the way, and a very interesting expression came up: to throw in the towel. Do you know what that means? Well, the comic strip I was reading was about a turtle who felt defeated by life after losing one of his friends. When it fianlly hit him he would have to make a decision, he thought: either I carry on with my life or throw in the towel. Is it easier to understand now? If throwing in the towel is the opposite of getting on with life, then it simply means to give up, stop trying, to quit. If you're in a project that's not going well and you're just trying to convince your team it's time to give up, you can say: How do we reach the decision it's fianlly time to walk away and throw in the towel? That can be an awful thing to say by the way, since you're discouraging everybody. But let's go a little further!

To throw in the towel reminds me of a en expression we have in Portuguese: chutar o balde. One thing that bugs me though is that chutar o balde can mean two things depending on the context it is used: to give up and get really upset. The same doesn't happen to our expression to throw in the towel. If you want to say someone lost temper, you can use the expression to kick up the fuss. See this example: The problem was solved only when Maria kicked up a fuss after having to wait the whole day. Notice that when you kick up a fuss, you're actually making a scene. It's really common to use that expression to talk about people losing temper in public spaces and drawing everybody's attention. I hope this helps. Take care!