Beat Around the Bush

Idiom #2

To “beat around the bush” is to avoid direct communication when broaching a topic or answering a question.  Beating around the bush can be accomplished in a number of ways—using allusions, implicatures, tangents, rabbit trails, double negatives, answering questions with questions, giving tons of history and context, apologizing for things before you say what you want to say, and any other way of being vague and indirect.

The Bush Game

This figure of speech probably developed in the days when english speakers actually hunted for their food.  If you run straight at an animal, standing in an open meadow, it will most likely see you coming and run away.  This is similar to directly confronting an touchy issue.  The softer approach would involve hitting a bush and catching your prey off guard.  A wild boar might be napping under the bush, or perhaps a ruffed grouse is perched within.  By beating around the bush, you would cause the animals alarm, and as they flee the bush, you’d easily bag them.

The Burning Bush

There is also a theory that this phrase came from the classic story of Moses and the Burning Bush.  In this episode, God had given Moses a clear and direct command, but Moses thought of all kinds of silly questions and objections, trying to get out of the mission God was giving him.

Misuse

In the Marx Brothers film “A Night at the Opera,” Groucho drops in on the opera conductor while he is shaving.  Groucho says “Always beating around the bush, eh Gottlieb?”