http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50221750
shamble
b. pl. In more general use, a scene of disorder or devastation; a ruin; a mess. orig. U.S.
1926 P. H. DE KRUIF Microbe Hunters III. iv. 83 Once more his laboratory became a shambles of cluttered flasks and hurrying assistants. 1942 E. WAUGH Put out More Flags ii. 150 Alastair learned, too, that all schemes ended in a ‘shambles’ which did not mean, as he feared, a slaughter, but a brief restoration of individual freedom of movement. 1966 M. R. D. FOOT SOE in France viii. 184 Helped the commandos to make a thorough shambles of the main dockyard. 1979 Daily Tel. 5 Sept. 6/6 Haiti remains a dictatorship, its economy in a shambles.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictiona...
sham·bles pl.n. (used with a sing. verb)
1. 1. A scene or condition of complete disorder or ruin: "The economy was in a shambles" (W. Bruce Lincoln).
2. Great clutter or jumble; a total mess: made dinner and left the kitchen a shambles.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shambles
1 archaic : a meat market
2 : slaughterhouse
3 a : a place of mass slaughter or bloodshed the battlefield became a shambles b : a scene or a state of great destruction : wreckage the city was a shambles after the bombing c (1) : a scene or a state of great disorder or confusion an economy in shambles (2) : great confusion : mess

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http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/shambl...
Common errors in English usage
Your clothes are in tatters, your plans are in ruins, but you can console yourself that your room cannot be “in shambles.”

The expression meaning “like a wreck” is “a shambles”: “Your room is a shambles! It looks like a cyclone hit it.”

A shambles used to be the counter in a meat stall and later, a bloody butchery floor. Settings like the throne room at the end of Hamlet or a disastrous battlefield strewn with body parts can be called “a shambles” in the traditional sense. Now the phrase usually means just “a mess.”

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Widerspruechlicher Kontext:
from guardian.co.uk:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=fire...
- £4.5m rescue plan for state-school Latin ends in shambles
- Sharif's party in shambles
- International talks on the future of whaling ended in shambles last night, with no deal between pro- and anti-whaling nations, ...

63 from guardian.co.uk for "is in shambles" economy
7 from guardian.co.uk for "is in a shambles" economy
756 from guardian.co.uk for "is a shambles" economy

NY Times: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=fire...
- Kenya's Tourism Industry in Shambles
- A Legal System in Shambles

6,310 from nytimes.com for "is in shambles" economy
979 from nytimes.com for "is in a shambles" economy
2,440 from nytimes.com for "is a shambles" economy



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LEO:
in shambles --- durcheinander
shambles [coll.] --- das Chaos
shambles --- das Durcheinander
shambles --- die Schlachtbank
shambles --- heilloses Durcheinander

Schwierig, schwierig...

Original und sicherlich korrekt ist "being a shambles". Alle Woerterbuecher fuehren aber ebenfalls die etwas seltsame Formulierung "being in a shambles" als korrekte Version auf. Und zumindest der M-W fuehrt ebenfalls ein Beispiel an economy in shambles fuer die oben als inkorrekt beschriebene Version.

Soweit man schnellen Google-Suchen glauben kann, ist in BE die "being a shambles" Verwendung noch haeufiger, waehrend man in AE mehr zu "being in shambles" neigt. "Being in a shambles" wird - wenig ueberraschend - eher weniger verwendet.

Angesichts der Woerterbuchbelege und der offensichtlichen Verwendung faellt es mir schwer, den Eintrag schlichtweg als falsch zu deklarieren. Aber ich verstehe sowieso nicht ganz, warum hier mit einem Adjektiv/Adverb uebersetzt wird. Alle Beispiele, die mir einfallen wollen, waeren besser mit "Durcheinander" uebersetzt. Oben mal ein aufgeblaehter Korrekturvorschlag.

Fowler ed. Burchfield, pp. 707-708:
shambles - In general use now invariably treated as a singular noun, and used mainly as an informal word for 'a mess, a muddle' (their marriage was a shambles). ... In some of its uses shambles is capable of being reduced to shamble, both now and in the past, but in the sense 'a scene of disorder, a muddle' (its economy remained in a shambles) it is always written with a final -s.

NOAD:
shambles - 1: [informal] a state of total disorder: my career was in a shambles.
2: a butcher's slaughterhouse (archaic except in place names).
• a scene of carnage: the room was a shambles—their throats had been cut and they lay in a waste of blood.

Interesting. Garner doesn't seem to mention it, and I wasn't aware that it was a usage issue at all.

To me 'to be in shambles,' without 'a,' sounds the least idiomatic; I would tend to agree with Brians that it should be avoided. Though maybe it's just more BE, who knows.

And 'to be a shambles,' though obviously right, sounds considerably less common nowadays, at least in my AE experience, than 'to be in a shambles.' The one with 'in a' really didn't bother me at all at first glance, though the more you think about it, the harder it is to be sure.

Burchfield and NOAD both cite examples with 'in a' and don't seem to find anything wrong with it, though NOAD marks it informal. But pace NOAD, I don't think anyone in the modern day really associates 'shambles' with literal carnage at all, so sense 2 is surely rare at best. The first half of the sentence about the room could just as well have been listed under sense 1, without the part about the blood.

Maybe it would help to get a few other takes on this one.

shambles
n sg shambles [ˈʃӕmblz]
a confused mess; (something in) a state of disorder His room was a shambles; We're in a bit of a shambles at the moment.

Kernerman English Learner’s Dictionary © 1986-2008 K Dictionaries Ltd and partners. All rights reserved

in Unordnung sein, (örtlich) völlig durcheinander sein

w, und wieder einmal schafft du, es mit minimaler Wortmeldung voellig am Thema vorbeizuschreiben. Es geht hier nicht um bessere Uebersetzungen fuer shambles, sondern um die korrekte Verwendung der Praepositionen auf der englischen Seite. ICh moechte dich nochmal darauf hinweisen, dass das Reinplaerren in eine Diskussion ohne Beruecksichtigung vorheriger Wortmeldungen und am Thema vorbei infantil und unhoeflich ist.

OT: (a) Die Uebersetzung ist gut, aber sehr frei, und kann in dieser Form nicht angeboten werden. The economy is in a shambles/We're in a bit of a shambles at the moment passen ueberhaupt nicht. (b) Die deutsche Seite ist falsch formuliert "wie auf einem Schlachtfeld aussehen" funktioniert eigentlich nur mit einer Ortsangabe. Hier/In deinem Zimmer sieht es aus wie auf einem Schlachtfeld. Wenn man es denn als Infinitiv anbieten will (mir waere ein Beispielsatz lieber), dann muesste es zumindest "wie ein Schlachtfeld aussehen" lauten.

sham·bles (shmblz)
pl.n. (used with a sing. verb)
1.
a. A scene or condition of complete disorder or ruin: "The economy was in a shambles" (W. Bruce Lincoln).
b. Great clutter or jumble; a total mess: made dinner and left the kitchen a shambles.
2.
a. A place or scene of bloodshed or carnage.
b. A scene or condition of great devastation.
3. A slaughterhouse.
4. Archaic A meat market or butcher shop

1a.
to be IN a shambles

- in der Wirtschaft herrscht Chaos
- (ugs.) die Wirtschaft ist völlig durcheinander
- die Wirtschaft liegt am Boden (fig.)

1b.

to leave sth. a shambles

- ein Schlachtfeld, Durcheinander, Chaos zurücklassen

To describe something as being a shambles or being in a shambles is perfectly fine, but in shambles sounds odd from my BE perspective too. It's not an expression I would use, but maybe it's creeping into English as a hypercorrection? I'm not aware of any AE/BE usage issue either.