American English Grammar Review
Education:Language Learning
Idioms! Beat a Dead Horse & To Beat The Bushes! English with Billgreen54
Would you like to help support better English around the world? You can support this podcast and more with a small contribution at https://ko-fi.com/billgreen54 American English grammar review with Bill Green 54. idioms always an interesting part of English Hey, today let's start out with beat a dead horse. It means to argue or pursue a point or topic without the possibility of success. Here's an example. They should give up trying to argue with a boss on that subject. They're beating a dead horse. In other words, stop wasting your time, right. Here's another one. The boy kept asking for a motorcycle, but his mother told him he could not have one and she would not change her mind. She told him he was beating a dead horse. In other words, stop wasting your time. a synonym to this might be run something into the ground. The expression is usually used to describe verbal communication, not something that you would write, beat a hasty retreat to run very fast in the opposite direction. An example might be a The old man came out on the porch to chase away the small boys who were throwing rocks at his windows. When they saw him, they beat a hasty retreat. In other words, they started running very fast. Another example is the cat wandered into the neighbor's yard, but it beat a hasty retreat when it saw the dog. In other words that started to run right? a synonym might be make tracks, hey, let's make tracks out of here, beat around the bush to speak or write evasively, or to talk around an issue. You could also say, beat about the bush. One example is, Judy couldn't come right out and tell her fiance that she no longer wanted to marry him. She had to beat around the bush until he understood. A second example. Hey, if you disagree with my opinion, just tell me Don't beat around the bush. An antonym. In other words, something opposite to beat around the bush would be Hey, let's get to the point. Get to the point about what you're trying to tell me. In other words, be more direct beat around the bush has a couple of synonyms also, the word Stonewall or hem and haw, those both mean pretty much the same thing. The phrase beat around the bush originates from a hunting practice dating to the 15th century beat someone to the punch to do something before someone else does it. Here's an example. They decided to make an offer to buy the house. But when they did, they found that someone else had already bought it, someone beat them to the punch. In other words, someone already bought the house and they were quicker, or they did something faster or before. Here's another example. Linda was going to invite him out to lunch, but he beat her to the punch he invited her before she had a chance to ask him. Here's an extremely common idiom beat the bushes to search exhaustively. In other words, I've looked everywhere, right? Well, we'll have to beat the bushes if we want to find another editor as good as Arthur was. In other words, we'll have to look really, really hard. Another example. I've beat the bushes trying to find the right spare part for my old car, but I haven't found it yet. So you could also compare beat the bushes to leave no stone un-turned. In other words, to look for something and put a lot of effort into it. Hey, I hope you enjoyed today's lesson American English grammar review with Bill Green 54. Thanks for listening! Would you like to help support better English around the world? You can support this podcast with a small contribution at https://ko-fi.com/billgreen54 ESL Teacher Billgreen54 shares American English at its best! Pronunciation, Intonation, Spelling, Grammar Rules! It's all here in this special podcast! Our English lessons are easy to understand! Our podcast is created for Native English speakers as well as ESL students! Whether you are studying English as a second language or as a refresher! Have fun with English!
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