«زَيِّ الْمَرَاكْبِيَّةْ يِتْخَانْقُوا عَلَى حَبْلْ»

The saying pictures a crew of boatmen quarreling fiercely over a single rope. Its throat-grabbing verb signals a heated row, not literal strangling, and the rope simply stands for a petty cause, not a claim about its worth to sailors. It mocks people whose argument has grown far angrier than its cause deserves.

When someone uses it, they are usually standing outside a dispute and judging it petty. It hints that the people involved have lost all sense of proportion and would do better to drop a squabble over nothing.

Use it to wryly describe people locked in a loud, bitter argument over something minor, such as relatives feuding over a small item or colleagues bickering over a trivial detail. It belittles the quarrel and can sound dismissive if aimed at someone directly.