Without beating too much around the bush, and looking out the window, I think I found the subject of the next article. Firstly, I thought about a mainly vocabulary related text, although I have a question already in mind that is grammar related.
Is ‘looking out the window’ correct?
Well I'm lookin' out the window, I'm lookin' at you
Yeah I'm lookin' out the window, I'm lookin' at you
(Lookin’ out the window, Stevie Ray Vaughn)
I’ll try not to write down that phrase again.
Some might argue that the correct phrase should contain an ‘of’ between the preposition out and the following word meaning a space usually filled with glass in the wall of a building or in a vehicle, to allow light and air in and to allow people inside the building to see out.
Have you ever seen that definition? window
I should round this up. In American English it is taught to be correct, however most members with British background on wordreference insisted on the using of ‘of. This line chart shows the emergence of the phrase without it, in the US. 1960
But did I not start to write about the elderflower cordial, with intentions to expand on some words and phrases related to the process of making it? And yet, why not sit on the fence, and explore these funny sounding phrases?
What is this guy talking about, again? - some of you might be asking yourselves.
As a matter of fact, today I didn’t have a precise subject when I began typing. Usually, after pulling out a drawer in my short-term memory, I put a few thoughts down. In the meantime, I also dig for relevant information; and this is the dangerous part. It is ten in the morning, and there are 49 tabs open in my browser. Four is essential to writing this text. I quickly closed about 20; truth to be told, there was still a window full of tabs about the development of the different timekeeping systems in various cultures throughout history, which is closely related to their mythologies.
For a moment, I was trying to stick to the subject. Which is, what exactly?
Funny sounding phrases.
To beat around the bush, and to sit on the fence - synonymous in the meaning of being hesitant, lacking a direct approach, or commitment.
The first idiom is known to come from literally beating the bushes to wake the birds while others hunted for those, a common act in medieval hunting. Origins of the second are uncertain.
Apparently, both include a word related to the view in front of me.
Well, believe it or not, I think like this: bush - a plant, fence- could be the one around the garden, elderflower- a bush in the front of the garden; am I so far from the word I first put down on the list of topics, which was garden?
To put the idioms in context:
You can beat around the bush a little more, or send the article and start to do something different.
Don't just sit on the fence there, come and help with straining the elderflower cordial!
Is this all shilly-shally, which means spending too much time on something because of not knowing the right thing to do? Or is it dilly-dally, meaning wasting time by being slow or indecisive? I’ll let you choose.
Me; I fortunately keep the draft, at least most of the time. So I only needed to insert headings, Italics and links, after closing the tab and losing the whole text.
In the coming days, I plan to focus on the garden. Aiming to be in it, while writing about it.
Have a nice day!