The phrase nip it in the bud means to stop something before it gets going. You’ve probably heard it used in this way: Nip that bad habit in the bud before it gets out of control!
What does this phrase actually mean? Nip means to remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. A bud is a newly formed leaf or flower that has not yet bloomed.
Guest post by Meryl K. Evans
The valet pulled up in my car. I thanked him, tipped him and entered my car. I noticed both turn signals were blinking. What’s up? It took me a minute to realize the valet had turned on the hazard lights. I didn’t even remember if I had ever used them in this car.
I touched every switch, button and stick searching for the toggle. Sure, I could dig for the instruction manual in the glove compartment, but I didn’t want to hold up the folks behind me.
If you’ve only heard the word gist aloud, you might not know how to spell it. Both gist and jist might seem like good choices, but one of them is not.
When we say we want to get the gist of something, we’re talking about its essence or main point:
In a recent Grammarly Pop Quiz email, we asked readers how they would correct this sentence: I’m looking forward to purchasing tickets for the 2018 winter Olympics.
A: Capitalize the “W” in winter. B: Make “O” in Olympics lowercase. C: Accept the sentence as is.
44 percent of these readers gave the correct answer, A. Did you choose correctly?
Seasons are only capitalized when they’re used as proper nouns, as in the sentence above: The movie will debut in the spring of 2016.
Some writers use idioms to “add color” to their writing, while others are adamant about keeping their text as simple as possible. While idioms can certainly clutter your work with unnecessary detail, they may also introduce powerful imagery into your text. Since “knowledge is power,” let’s take a look at the best way to accomplish this.
First, what is an idiom? An idiom is an expression with a figurative meaning that differs from the literal meaning.
