Beat Around the Bush Transcript

00:03 Hey everyone! Anne here from Elevate English. I have another short episode for you today about the idiom “beat around the bush”. In British English you might hear people say “beat about the bush”.

00:16 This expression means to avoid talking about the important point or the main topic. It’s for when someone doesn’t speak directly. They’re talking about a lot of other stuff instead of the real topic. Maybe they don’t want to answer a question, or give their true opinion. If someone does this, it’s common for English speakers to say, “Will you stop beating around the bush and get to the point?” It means stop avoiding the topic, tell me what you really think.

00:45 Let me give you a couple examples to make this more clear. Imagine you are shopping for clothes with a friend. Your friend chooses an outfit that you think is really ugly and not stylish, but you don’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them that directly. They ask you, “What do you think about this outfit? Should I buy it?” So you try to avoid the question, by saying “It’s supposed to be really nice this weekend, did you see the weather forecast? Maybe we should plan a beach day.” Your friend might get annoyed, and say, “Stop beating around the bush and tell me your honest opinion of these clothes!”

01:19 Let’s see a second example. Now imagine you’re watching the news. There is an interview with a candidate running for mayor of the city. This candidate says that if he is elected as mayor, he will make public wifi free for everyone in the city. The interviewer wants to know how he will pay for the wifi. Will he raise taxes? Will he take money from a different government program to pay for the wifi? But the candidate talks about how fast the wifi will be, and how it will benefit local businesses. He wants to avoid answering the question. The interviewer says, “I don’t want to be rude, but it seems like you’re beating around the bush. Can you give your voters a clear answer as to how you will pay for the public wifi plan?”

02:02 So, if someone is being indirect with you, you can use this expression to tell them to say what they mean!

02:09 The origin of this idiom comes from bird hunting in medieval times. Some people in the hunting group would beat or hit the bushes to surprise the birds, making it easier for others in the group to hunt them as they fled from the bushes. Over the years, the expression evolved to have a much more figurative, not literal meaning in the English language.

02:31 Thanks so much for listening! If you like this podcast, it would help me a lot if you could leave a review on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. See you next time!