take on a life of its own：

It means the story keeps growing and spreading seemingly without the author, the publisher or someone else pushing it. It’s like a plane flying on autopilot.

"take on a life of its own"到底是神马意思呢？举个例子，就像是不需要作者，自己发展的故事；就像是不需要飞行员，无人驾驶的飞机。失去控制，自行发展。所以我觉得是不是可以用时下流行语“Hold不住”来翻译呢？

In short, if an idea, a theory or a rumor starts to "take on a life of its own", it begins to grow out of control of the original author. Take rolling a snowball for example. At first, the small thing refuses to go and you have to push it from behind. Then it grows bigger and rounder and rolls more easily down a slope, gathering force and pace by itself, and before you know, it rolls galloping down the slope leaving you standing there in awe.

简单说，这个句子可以用来形容很多情境，一个想法、一个理论或者一条流言蜚语都可以说“take on a life of its own”，意思也就是开始失去原本的控制。好比一个滚雪球。一开始小雪球不会自己滚，你得在后面推它。当雪球越滚越大，越滚越圆时，就会自己自动向山坡下滚去了。而且越滚越快，简直是飞奔，你根本就赶不上它的速度，最后只能傻傻站在原地了。/(ㄒoㄒ)/~~等等我，雪球君

Alright, here are media examples of things taking on a life of their own:

Suddenly this summer, Sister Lotus is all over China.

Hotly debated on Chinese-language Web sites, her saucy photos get millions of hits. National magazines dote on her, and China’s television crews are taping away. Late to catch on, Communist Party censors now officially frown on her. Some sociologists warn that Sister Lotus cannot be good for China’s teenagers; others smile and predict her fame will be fleeting.

But nobody, including Sister Lotus, appears to know what this is all about.

“I think it’s crazy,” she said in an interview.…

For reasons that, as is customary, they did not explain, Communist Party censors recently barred the broadcast of a Sister Lotus program prepared by China Central Television, the government-run network. They also made it clear to Web site operators that the fun had gone on long enough. By then, however, the phenomenon appeared to have taken on a life of its own.

- In Chinese Cyberspace, A Blossoming Passion, Washington Post, July 19, 2005.

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就让我们用一张 Sister Lotus 的照片来结束吧，励志姐！╭(╯3╰)╮